# What would be best for a XBMC "Media" server?



## Dracari (Jul 16, 2008)

This has GOT to be the worst thing i can ask considering what happened to the Main  site's servers (may what failed rest in Computer heaven XD)


but i got a poorly slapped together what you could call, a "Server" to host movies and music  for a popular Xbox1 "Dashboard"   "XBMC"  

its just a lil more powerfull than the unit itself
 Xbox specs are if you dunn know . 
Intel Celeron 733MHZ x86 Processor
Custom designed Nvida Video and Networking card
64MB Ram
and Stock (mostly) WD 8 [if lucky] 10GB HD

the server i've made atm outta spare parts i hadto take down {things began to fail to play , the xbox couldnt "find" the server at times  and the area around it was hot , it wasnt untill i'm moving things i'm not using on a daily basis to new home i found out the power supply's fan had given out and was restarting often.[Headless server w/ PC anywhere Host running to work on it remotely])

(Server is nameless and i got no Clue what to name it ^.^;; )

OS: Windows XP Pro Corp [ yea yea dont gripe me about using corp edition]

Hardware:
1.2GHZ AMD Duron Processor
Generic Motherboard (and rather..... "Dated" thats made the orginal FA server look top of the line XD [no offense  or insults intended])
512MB SD-Ram Maxed out by Motherboard Limits
a cheap generic  Wifi G Network card
250Watt Powersupply (Currently Dead Powersupply "Venting Fan")
Nvidia Geforce FX5200 [PCI edition]


Hard Drives
Western Digital 20GB HDD "Windows Drive"  (model # unknown as its at the new place and net's not active yet. and thsi HD stores no movies or music its still 5GB use by windows 15GB FREE)

Western Digital 80GB "Media Drive" (again Model # Unknown as its storing everything and filling up Rapidly ;-; )

Disc Media
Toshiba SD-5112R CD-R/RW DVD-R/-RW for DVD Movie importing


I'm pretty sure this one's motherboard hits the 137GB HDD limit so would if i upgrade to a bigger HD, using a Firewire addon card + a Firewire enclosure kit do or should i invest in something better (wanna keep it low end and cheap as all it will do is run when i want to use the xbox 1  to listen to music or watch movies etc.)

and if those who read this, could help me figure out a name for this server ^^;; ..i've had bad creativity for Names  but like to keep Dragon / FFXI related  and try to ignore spelling errors and typos This herm Dragon  has been up all night and no rest been tweeking and pimping out my psp, so yea my minds almost total mush.


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## Arkolyte (Jul 16, 2008)

1.2 GHz?  *snickers behind back*  Well, it does what you need it to, right?

Personally, I would build a new computer, but if the one you're using is fast enough for your needs, no need to spend the extra money.  If you need more HDD space, I would get (and have myself) something like a WD My Book, but only if that computer's new enough to have USB 2.0.  If not, well, USB 1.0 just isn't gonna do it, so yeah Firewire card would be good.  As for a name, I have no idea, someone else will have to chime in on that.  My own server is named Odysseus, but that was more browsing the internet at the right time than naming skills.


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## Keowolf (Jul 16, 2008)

Do you want to continue streaming media to your Xbox, or would you consider installing a new hard drive it?

Instead of buying new parts for your server, you could install a 500 GB hard drive in your Xbox for less than $100 (or more money for larger drives, of course), including shipping for the drive. Regardless of if your Xbox is softmodded, has a modchip installed, or has its TSOP-flashed, upgrading the hard drive isn't that difficult of a task.


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## Eevee (Jul 16, 2008)

why did you need to steal a proprietary os for a _server_


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## Dracari (Jul 16, 2008)

i allready have a 160GB HDD in it but its preloaded w/ som enice games  and about every emulator and rom u can think of.i've got about 4 Movies (2 DVD rips 2 "DVD Video Files" style copies and all of the entire Tenchi Myuo anime series and after all that i've got about 8GB free on the xbox's HD


ohh and i see your snicking Arkolyte  its a slapped together spare parts unit 

and Eevee, be4 you even Troll this.. its only copy of XP Pro o ihave seeing as it came with the pc after a friend built it last year (main pc [2.5GHZ AMD Dual Core  64 X2 Athlon 4800+ 2GB DDR2-667 Ram, Geforce 8500GT ] ) so Think before you post.  ever stop and consider it could of been given as a copy by a friend maybe? granted i do my share of Downloadin but.. for once i didnt Pirate the OS . and thinking maybe for the system's specs. to go with Linux


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## Arkolyte (Jul 16, 2008)

Lol I know what you mean about scrabbled together computers.  I got one too and it also has a 1.2 GHz Processor.  I laugh at it in my spare time too. XD

Linux would be pretty good if you can get it to work on that computer.  I was trying to put Linux on my crap PC, but all of them locked up during install, then told me I didn't meet specs.  I would stick with Windows myself.  I hate Microsoft, but at least their stuff is compatible with everything.

Another advantage of having external HDDs is that they can be easily swapped from one computer to another, if you decide to go that route.


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## Eevee (Jul 16, 2008)

Dracari said:


> so Think before you post.  ever stop and consider it could of been given as a copy by a friend maybe?


could of?
I don't really see how using someone else's pirated copy is much better



Dracari said:


> granted i do my share of Downloadin but.. for once i didnt Pirate the OS . and thinking maybe for the system's specs. to go with Linux


I am not sure how to parse this


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## Arkolyte (Jul 16, 2008)

Eevee said:


> could of?
> I don't really see how using someone else's pirated copy is much better



Well, I don't have any room to talk myself because although I have multiple legit OSs, I have a couple running Black XP cause it's prettier and more stable.


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## Dracari (Jul 17, 2008)

eevee from when i said that meant this  that i didnt personally download and burn to disc that copy. and the 2nd half to as how old the system is and how "Dated". to run Linux over Windows XP


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## nrr (Jul 17, 2008)

Arkolyte said:


> 1.2 GHz?  *snickers behind back*  Well, it does what you need it to, right?


A couple of the machines in my equipment rack are 1.4GHz, and they run several VMs for trivial things like DNS and mail.  The one sitting on my desk has dual 1.4GHz chips, and it reasonably easily gnaws through some pretty large datasets, all things considered.

Clock speed isn't everything.



			
				Arkolyte said:
			
		

> If you need more HDD space, I would get (and have myself) something like a WD My Book, but only if that computer's new enough to have USB 2.0.  If not, well, USB 1.0 just isn't gonna do it, so yeah Firewire card would be good.


Honestly?  Firewire is very nice, but you may want to look into getting a Serial ATA controller (one can be had for about the same price as a Firewire card if you look in the right places) and a Serial ATA disk if you're not concerned at all about randomly disconnecting the disk and taking it along with you.



			
				Arkolyte said:
			
		

> As for a name, I have no idea, someone else will have to chime in on that.  My own server is named Odysseus, but that was more browsing the internet at the right time than naming skills.


dilenth, duluth, fanth, gereth, and joruth are all names that fit into his criteria.  They're the names of some of the smaller dragons from Anne McCaffrey's books, so... there you go.


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## Eevee (Jul 17, 2008)

Dracari said:


> and the 2nd half to as how old the system is and how "Dated". to run Linux over Windows XP


how is that "dated"?  what


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## CyberFoxx (Jul 17, 2008)

The fileserver I got on my network is just Gentoo Linux running on a Pentium 3 450Mhz with an ASUS Intel 440BX motherboard, a SMC EPIC-based 100mbit NIC, and 512MB of PC-100. The 160GB UDMA-100 HD it has I keep all my media on. For streaming to my XBox, this setup is perfect, samba has yet to fail me (Although I wish XBMC had NFS support) and the only thing that actually stutters is 24-bit/96khz/6ch Flacs.

So, compared to my setup, yours should be perfect.

PS: Oh, and even though I'm using a Promise PATA card to connect the 160GB, the BIOS does actually support it. Just the on-board PATA controller is UDMA-33. I just have a 10GB and two 8GB XBox HDs on the on-board, and the 120GB, 160GB and 250GB are on the Promise card.


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