XBMC NAS Build

Well I've finished up my fully automated downloader / NAS server and thought I would put up some images of it and explain how everything works.

Around 3 months ago I got into XBMC pretty hard core and decided to digitize my DVD collection. So I started building a NAS server out of an older HP XW8600 Work Station here are the specs on it.

Model [XW8600]
CPU [Dual Xeon E5440 @ 2.83 GHz]
RAM [6GB PC2 5300F ECC]
OS HDD [160GB 7200 Seagate]
Storage HDD [4 x 2TB Westrn Digital RED]
OS [FreeNAS]

I started off with three storage drives in RAIDz but decided to add a fourth as I was beginning to run out of room (250 + DVD's will do that to ya) and the chassis only has slots for 4 HDD. Three were used by the storage drives and the fourth was the OS drive for FreeNAS (Long story short, I had stability issues using a various flash cards so I went for a tried and tested 160GB HDD). S

So I went out and picked up a cheap fix in the form of a Silverstone CFP52B device that has 4 swappable 3.25 drive caddy's and fits inside three 5.25 bays. I just happened to have three available! so I picked that up and had to do a little modding of the XW8600 chassis because this hot swap case wasn't designed to be used with it.

Here's the before and after

Before





After









With the NAS server complete I was using my laptop for everything else. All my downloads, renaming and organizing... but that was pretty taxing. So I ended up getting my hands on a Poweredge 2950 Gen III server (Did a few hours of volunteer work at an electronics recycling facility refurbishing old computers and servers for non profit organizations in return for the free server) to be used as my downloader, renamer and backup server. The specs of that server are:

Model [Poweredge 2950 III]
CPU [Dual Xeon E5410 @ 2.33 GHz]
RAM [8GB PC2 5300F ECC]
HDD [3 X 500 GB 7200 WD Enterprise Grade RAID 5]
OS [Windows Server 2008 R2]

While a bit power hungry, (Ok a little more power hungry that it should be - both systems eat up around 400W an hour or about 9.6 KWh per day totaling $0.76 per day in electricity at my current rate) they get the job done and I have yet to have a single issue. They software setup I have going on the Poweredge 2950 is completely automated which helps when downloading Royalty Free TV shows and Movies. (Believe it or not there are quite a few of them out there and believe me when I say some of them are pretty damn good from interdependent film makers! I urge you all to give some of them a chance).

I've included the other image in the second post as only 6 images per post can be made here.

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Poweredge 2950





Both systems