Media File Server with RAID 6

dreadtech said:

What are good specs to build a media file server (movies, music and some docs)?

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Well any computer with at least a pentium 3 can be a file server , the computer has little or nothing to do.

dreadtech said:

I want it in a RAID 6 implementation, I want to do software RAID since I've read this is better. Thinking about using Linux as the OS. Want at least 2 TBs of available space for storage, so I was thinking 4 1TB harddrives in a RAID 6 setup will give me about 2 TB for storage.

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Why not just buy the four 1tb hard drives , and use them as four 1tb hard drives? This raid setup isn't really more reliable or faster then having just a backup copy of the hardrive on hand. It over complicates a very simple machine.

dreadtech said:

Also what's a good motherboard for this setup? How about CPU and RAM? Do yall have any good cases with good ventilation for a 4-5 HD server? Is 500 watts enough power for a PSU supporting this set up?

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Once again almost any pc can be a file server. As for a case look into some antec cases that have the front drive bays kept cool by some 120mm fans like the antec 900. Or also look at basic server cases.

As far as power , hard drives don't use alot of power at all. If there's no gpu then almost any power supply over 350/400w would be fine.

I never done RAID before so wanted to learn/practice it for my IT career. Also, I should mention that I am going to be streaming video and music over my home network off this media server, so I thought a higher speed would be needed.

As for the practice in raid setup I can't argue with that practice is practice. But you really won't need it for streaming video on a home network. It would only help if the network was slower then the hdd transfer speed , which it isn't.

emosun said:

As for the practice in raid setup I can't argue with that practice is practice. But you really won't need it for streaming video on a home network. It would only help if the network was slower then the hdd transfer speed , which it isn't.

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Will the RAID setup hinder the streaming speed?

Not really , but it's not going to make it much faster either. The network is going to be just as fast if not faster then the drives in the machine itself. If the machine can read it's own files just fine then any machine on the network can as well.