Author Topic: [GUIDE] Automated Media Server & XBMC Setup  (Read 228317 times)

Re: Automated Media Server & XBMC Setup (Long & Image Heavy)
Reply #60 on: September 07, 2011, 19:15:15 PM
The external ports on the case, didn't realise there were more inside?!

    • Tekforums.net - It's new and improved!
  • Offline Clock'd 0Ne

  • Clockedtastic
  • Posts: 10,937
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
Re: Automated Media Server & XBMC Setup (Long & Image Heavy)
Reply #61 on: September 07, 2011, 19:37:02 PM
There's only one inside, but I believe this may be the only one you can boot from. :)

Open the door and look just at front near the big power cable and BIOS battery, you can't miss it!

Re: Automated Media Server & XBMC Setup (Long & Image Heavy)
Reply #62 on: September 07, 2011, 21:35:58 PM
When I plug the USB memory stick into any of the ports including the one inside the machine the Samsung 2TB HDD disappears from the boot order which may be causing the problem?
Last Edit: September 07, 2011, 21:44:00 PM by LukeC #187;

Re: Automated Media Server & XBMC Setup (Long & Image Heavy)
Reply #63 on: September 07, 2011, 23:00:46 PM
I believe I have found the problem.. Downloaded some service packs for Windows Server from MSDN rather than Win Server ISO itself.

DUH!

    • Tekforums.net - It's new and improved!
  • Offline Clock'd 0Ne

  • Clockedtastic
  • Posts: 10,937
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
Re: Automated Media Server & XBMC Setup (Long & Image Heavy)
Reply #64 on: September 07, 2011, 23:07:26 PM
Glad you susses it out! I haven't tried mine yet, but it seems the few dramas involved seem to stem from odd software behaviour more than anything, I'm hoping it will be plain sailing for me.

Re: Automated Media Server & XBMC Setup (Long & Image Heavy)
Reply #65 on: September 08, 2011, 08:41:34 AM
What are the benefits of using the USB drive instead of a 3.5 drive. Is it just the extra free HD slot you get for storage or is it faster?

I'm considering booting Win Server 2008 R2 from USB but I'm concerned that some of the application I intend to run may have issues with not having enough space on the install drive for temp/cache files.
Formerly sexytw

    • Tekforums.net - It's new and improved!
  • Offline Clock'd 0Ne

  • Clockedtastic
  • Posts: 10,937
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
Re: Automated Media Server & XBMC Setup (Long & Image Heavy)
Reply #66 on: September 08, 2011, 09:18:22 AM
People are mostly using it to boot from USB pens for the BIOS update or for small/streamlined OS installs like freeNAS or unRAID (as then you get your extra storage drive slot). I certainly wouldn't recommend it for a Windows or linux install! I'm going to use mine to hook up a USB DVD drive I've borrowed from Alan to get Server 2008 R2 installed.

Bear in mind you can install a SATA card for additional ports, most people seem to be able to comfortably squeeze 6 drives into the server, but some have managed 7 or even 9 :lol:

Re: Automated Media Server & XBMC Setup (Long & Image Heavy)
Reply #67 on: September 08, 2011, 09:38:34 AM
You can get 6 drives in there with the standard ports, although one of the drives wont be properly mounted...

You can also get a 5 1/4" adapter to mount a slim DVD drive and a 2 1/2" HDD/SSD

Re: Automated Media Server & XBMC Setup (Long & Image Heavy)
Reply #68 on: September 08, 2011, 11:34:27 AM
Looks like i'd got the wrong end of the stick with that one. I'll look for a guide on getting 6 in without modification. I'd love 5 x 2Tb in RAID 5 plus a system disk.

I havent been able to find any benchmarks of a Microserver running RAID 5, if the extra CPU overhead for the raid calculations a concern with the relatively slow CPU?

EDIT: This allows SIX 2.5" drives to fit into the 5.25" bay, how many spare SATA connectors are there?

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/sharkoon-sata-quickport-internal-sata-iii-6-gb-s-6xbay-25-hdd-into-single-525-bay
Last Edit: September 08, 2011, 11:41:14 AM by sexytw #187;
Formerly sexytw

Re: Automated Media Server & XBMC Setup (Long & Image Heavy)
Reply #69 on: September 08, 2011, 11:50:03 AM
Looks like i'd got the wrong end of the stick with that one. I'll look for a guide on getting 6 in without modification. I'd love 5 x 2Tb in RAID 5 plus a system disk.

I havent been able to find any benchmarks of a Microserver running RAID 5, if the extra CPU overhead for the raid calculations a concern with the relatively slow CPU?

EDIT: This allows SIX 2.5" drives to fit into the 5.25" bay, how many spare SATA connectors are there?

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/sharkoon-sata-quickport-internal-sata-iii-6-gb-s-6xbay-25-hdd-into-single-525-bay

LOL!

There are 4 to the main cage, then one internal and one external connector, the external connector you can feed via the PCI slot cover..

Shown here: http://www.avforums.com/forums/networking-nas/1429720-tims-7-24tb-tiddler-unraid-nas.html

Obviously you could just get an additional SATA card to make use of another 6

Re: Automated Media Server & XBMC Setup (Long & Image Heavy)
Reply #70 on: September 08, 2011, 11:53:32 AM
Also I guess that if you have 6 1TB drives you are going to be limited to 6TB and quite a lot of cost, as if you fitted 2 3.5 drives you could just put in a couple of 2TB drives at much less cost?

You lose 2TB, but I guess it depends on how much that will actually matter?

    • Tekforums.net - It's new and improved!
  • Offline Clock'd 0Ne

  • Clockedtastic
  • Posts: 10,937
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
Re: Automated Media Server & XBMC Setup (Long & Image Heavy)
Reply #71 on: September 08, 2011, 12:23:23 PM
I wouldn't bother going down the 2.5" route save for a system SSD or unraid cache drive, like you said you soon realise it becomes prohibitively expensive. For that money you could by an external 4-drive bay case and pass through to a SATA card I reckon!

The problem is anything over 4 storage + system disk isn't really viable without an add-in card. I don't know if it's possible to boot off eSATA or not, but that would be a possibility for drive six.

In terms of making a RAID volume in Windows, I don't know how well/if its possible to integrate the eSATA into this either, most setups seem to be using this for a cache drive and boot off USB, using the ODD SATA for 5th storage volume.

My own feeling from reading all of this is that if you're after a maximised pure storage solution unraid is the way to go, as it really doesn't care about HDD sizes or how they are connected.

Re: Automated Media Server & XBMC Setup (Long & Image Heavy)
Reply #72 on: September 09, 2011, 18:19:44 PM
 Wub Just popped in as I subscribed to this thread :p

The workaround for 6 drives is to use the 4 sata in the caddy, the single sata for the 5.25 bay & then running a cable from the external sata to the 3.5" bay.
I looked at the 6 bay on scan before, but opted against it as its for 2.5" drives.

Any of the  USB's should be bootable - Ive booted xbmc live using the usb ports on the front - I use the internal one for a wifi usb adapter.

For Ipad users, theres 2 awesome remotes constellation (my fav) http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=104567
and the offical app xbmc commander http://www.xbmc-commander.com/

Anyone wanting to use XBMC live & install to a HDD - heres my quick & dirty guide
networking
sudo pico /etc/network/interfaces

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wireless-essid home (home being my wireless network name)


file server

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install samba
sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

    [xbmc]
    comment = XBMC Share
    path = /media (media being where my shares are setup)
    force user = xbmc
    inherit permissions = yes
    read only = No
    guest ok = Yes


mounting hard drives
mk dir /media/hdd1
mkdir /media/hdd2
mkdir /media hdd3
sudo nano /etc/fstab
UUID=0E74F72674F70F69 /media/hdd1 ntfs-3g defaults 0 0          (the random characters are drive specific - in this case I am mounting 3 drives)
UUID=22209A40209A1ABD /media/hdd2 ntfs-3g defaults 0 0             (you can get your random characters from running linux version of fdisk)
UUID=26F6D5C1F6D59203 /media/hdd3 ntfs-3g defaults 0 0

HDMI sound
Create a asound.conf file as follows : sudo nano /etc/asound.conf (this is how I got sound working on my micro-server to a zotac nvidia card)

Add the following text into the file, and save :
pcm.!default {
   type plug
   slave {
       pcm "hw:0,3"
       rate 48000
   }
}


updating nvidia drivers
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

And skip the x-config, as it tends to kill XBMC autostart.


sab nzb - work in progress
sudo apt-get install sabnzbdplus
sudo nano /etc/default/sabnzbdplus
You'll need to change two settings to get the application to work properly: USER and PORT. I usually just set the USER to the account XBMC runs on by default 'XBMC' and set the PORT to '8080'. This means you will later access the web interface via http://XBMCIP:8080/sabnzbd/

http://boshdirect.com- good stuff there

Thats all the sh*t I need to do when my linux server crashes after I play around - only takes me 20mins to get everything up & running into a usable state.

now im going back in to wilderness.. cherio

Re: Automated Media Server & XBMC Setup (Long & Image Heavy)
Reply #73 on: September 09, 2011, 18:42:02 PM
LOL! You should stick around, it's not quite the same without you here :P

Looks like sound advice, although I don't think it has a 3.5" bay, I think there is an area where you could fit a 3.5" drive, but I dont think there is any way to mount it? (I might be wrong)


Re: Automated Media Server & XBMC Setup (Long & Image Heavy)
Reply #74 on: September 10, 2011, 19:03:19 PM
I seem to  be getting very high CPU usage when XBMC is idle, or when im using the menus. The interface is a bit laggy.

It seems to sit at 50-70% of the microserver CPU which slows everything else with down and when SABnzbd does an extractions it really lags video.

Im looking into it.
Formerly sexytw

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.