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Media center built around a mac mini

O

obsesivegamer

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 28, 2011
6
0
So I have a mac mini at home that I use as my desktop computer and media server. I have attached a sizable external hdd(3tb) and installed pled on it so it runs all day, and I stream happily. However, Due to the fact that both my Time Machine backups and my media resides on the external drive I have come close to filling it up.
I am looking for a suitable solution where I don't have to keep adding an external drive every year and keep sorting out which media is on what drive. I have heard good/bad things about raid arrays such as the Drobo 5d.

I like the idea of having my media stored on a continuous volume with redundancy , however since I will be actively pulling data on and off the machine I have heard the drobo is not ideal.
Others have told me about NAS such as sinology ,But I already have a decked out mini so why bother with a networked device?

So does anyone have any idea what a good solution for a movie/tv show streaming media storage device for me?
 
How much space are you currently using for your TimeMachine backups? Also how much are you willing to invest? The major selling point of the NAS would be that stores all your content and does not need to sit in your living room.


My ideal setup would be a NAS in a different room and stream the content to all of the rooms in my house.

Alternatively you could look into a RAID Enclosure to add to your Mac Mini. I can't recommend any particular model, but NewEgg has quite a few.

The other method would be to buy an external drive that you would use just for your TimeMachine backups. This way you have 3 TBs for your media and a different drive dedicated to your backups.

Currently I just have an old tower with a few drives sitting behind my TV (hidden in an armoire) running XBMC.
 
JCsHands2 said:
How much space are you currently using for your TimeMachine backups? Also how much are you willing to invest? The major selling point of the NAS would be that stores all your content and does not need to sit in your living room.


My ideal setup would be a NAS in a different room and stream the content to all of the rooms in my house.

Alternatively you could look into a RAID Enclosure to add to your Mac Mini. I can't recommend any particular model, but NewEgg has quite a few.

The other method would be to buy an external drive that you would use just for your TimeMachine backups. This way you have 3 TBs for your media and a different drive dedicated to your backups.

Currently I just have an old tower with a few drives sitting behind my TV (hidden in an armoire) running XBMC.
Click to expand...
The time machine backups are about 300 gb in total, but I want to have about 6tb for music, tv shows, movies, an photo's/home videos. My budget for this is around $500

My mini is currently sitting at my desk and streaming via pled to a roku in my living room. When I am away from home i connect via back to my mac (i have a macbook air) and stream that way.
Does a NAS do this functionality any better than my mini would?
 
You really need separate drive(s) for backup. Regardless of the size you need. That shouldn't be considered an "option", it's the only reasonable answer. Otherwise it isn't much of a backup.

Separate this into 2 categories in your head, shop for them separately. NAS is probably a great idea for media, that's where I want to go, just haven't, yet.
 
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