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XBMC and NAS server

  • I plan on amassing a video collection much larger than I can ever fit on a hard drive and thus in my XBOX. I really want to get a NAS server and stick a terabyte of storage in it that I can put my videos on and access from my XBOX. I don't know a lot about the technology behind the communication between a NAS server and another computer. Does anyone know if the XBOX would be able to access media stored on a NAS server? Would it depend on the NAS server? If so what do I need to look for when buying one?


  • if you play the video using the video_ts.ifo file, the dvdplayer becomes the default player and it will play it back seemlessly. the gap you're talking about is when you use mplayer to play a vob set. (the stacking method i described earlier uses the video_ts.ifo file so that the dvdplayer is used for playback.)

    ...added to wiki: http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.php?title=Video_Players_-_DVDPlayer_and_Mplayer


  • Build a Linux server and load it up with drives. Linux's software raid works great for redundancy. I've been using it for a while now in both raid-1 and raid-5 configurations. And if that's not enough, build two and and use DRBD to sync the two boxes together. (It's network raid.)


  • just keep the dvd's in their native format. copy the entire video_ts folder onto your share and rename it the movie name. enable stacking and the folder will magically get stacked into the movie.

    yeah, thanks, and I know there's a dozen other threads on that topic, so I won't go further on it here, but I'd been thinking that method left a noticeable playback gap between the splits - maybe it was just the way I ripped that dvd, which was some time ago now.

    anyway, off to buy a new 320 GB drive now that my naslite box is confirmed working (it currently has the 1 GB drive that was in that pentium 120 I dug up...)


  • Pricewatch has Seagate referbs (500G) for 150


  • Linksys WRTSL54GS + USB hub + USB disks (add as needed)
    Wired / Wireless router + Samba server in 6"x6"x1" box.
    Low power consumption, quiet (no fans), small footprint.
    Open source, customizable, Linux based firmware.

    Built my "rack" between two wall studs in a closet, one unit standing on each 2.5" deep shelf (modem, router, and usb disks); also power strip, cable TV and cat5e distribution. Only problem is it isn't totally silent; usb disks are fanless but disk spin 'hum' transmitted through studs / wall can be heard when it's really quiet.


  • Awesome thanks. Just didn't want to invest in expensive hardware if I couldn't use it with my XBOX.


  • SMB,SAMBA,CIFS... Windows share basicly. That's what the NAS should support. FTP could be used instead but does not work as good, at least not in my tests


  • that sounds like they're using FAT32 partitions, which have a hard limit of 4GB per file. just a theory...


  • Confirmed, the 4G limit isnt really an issue for me personally as my dvdrips are done in xvid format so they are well below 4G. Also, since you cant play games over a share effectively the 4G is hardly a problem.

    NASLite SMB floppy and 4x250G hard disks. The sucker hasnt been turned off for over 11 months now.


  • just keep the dvd's in their native format. copy the entire video_ts folder onto your share and rename it the movie name. enable stacking and the folder will magically get stacked into the movie.


  • I guess this thread provides some answers:

    http://www.serverelements.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=4489

    free naslite, or a floppy-bootable naslite has a 4GB file limit. purchased versions don't, but must either boot from CD, USB, or possibly boot from floppy w/ more componenets available on an attached USB jump drive.


    hmmm... that 4 GB limit kinda sucks for wanting to rip complete dvd's, on the other hand I'm not sure what my old Pentium 120 MHz would think of a USB drive, let alone booting from a CD. I guess I'll have to try.

    Any way you slice it, though, NASLite is cheap and appears to be a solid, well-supported solution.


  • NASLite... old tower with floppy drive and network card... all the IDE drives you can muster (4 max) and away you go. Is what I did and it works wonderfully!Yep, that is what I did too. Four 320 gigabyte IDE drives in my old AMD1700. It works great. The problem is I'm already approaching filling up all of those drives with movies/tv shows so now I have to either get another computer or add a sata card.... I doubt the PSU in that computer could handle another drive though.


  • you can generally make stuff quieter with some creativity. Things like mounting your drives/enclosures/systems on foam help a lot when it comes to noise reduction, and you can usually accomplish this cheap :D


  • NASLite... old tower with floppy drive and network card... all the IDE drives you can muster (4 max) and away you go. Is what I did and it works wonderfully!

    Hey, HarshReality, what version of NASLite are you using. NASLite- ...FTP? I notice NASLite-SMB they stated somewhere had a 4GB file size limit.

    Thanks!


  • Buffalo have a few NAS products for those with limited space (and money to spend). And don't get hung up on RAID. You can attach a USB drive and back off to that if you don't mind the copy being a day old.

    I have a linkstation PRO. It's faster than the Linkstation but doesn't have a built-in print server (but the Linux gurus are working on that)


  • The thought had crossed my mind to just throw a bunch of drives in a machine. I did worry about noise though (CPU fan, PSU fan, case fan(s)). I would also want to invest in a nice RAID card were I to do that so I could get redundancy. I wouldn't want to do mirror since it can be pretty slow so I couldn't get by with just a cheap $100 MB with built in RAID. Save for the RAID card and the drives I have plenty of spare hardware for that type of thing and space in my rack but I would much rather put something rack mountable in it. That of course means I could get just a rack mountable case but then why not just spend a bit more and get a rack mountable NAS server?

    The linksys router thing sounds cool but again I do need redundancy.

    Anyway thanks for your input all!


  • if you play the video using the video_ts.ifo file, the dvdplayer becomes the default player and it will play it back seemlessly. the gap you're talking about is when you use mplayer to play a vob set. (the stacking method i described earlier uses the video_ts.ifo file so that the dvdplayer is used for playback.)


  • NASLite... old tower with floppy drive and network card... all the IDE drives you can muster (4 max) and away you go. Is what I did and it works wonderfully!







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