Minimum PowerMac for a Media Server

[chrismacguy]

Hey, This is a help call,

In the future, I will be looking for a Media Server, namely a Mac. I want to use it to store all my iMovie projects - mainly iSight or DV format, very little HD, stream them to my Main Mac and also to a couple of Windows PCs (not mine), and maybe preview a smaller version (640*480 or 720*480). I am thinking that Mac OS X 10.3.9 or 10.4.11 will do. Especially as I use iMovie '06 and might use an older version of iTunes. I want to use an older PowerPC PowerMac to do this, can I get away with a G4 running at 400Mhz with 512 MB RAM, or do I need a faster G4/G5?

 

[FF_productions]

Well I'm thinking you get a PowerMac G4, get a USB 2.0 card or use a Firewire drive and daisy chain it. Buy a terabyte USB drive for like $110 (I literally just bought one off amazon for that), or even get 2.

Host via ethernet to router, and all computers connected to network can access it and drop stuff on it.

Panther/Tiger, doesn't really matter, since computer is acting as host.

I don't see reason for a G5 or anything fast like that, unless you are actually using the machine, but in this case, like I said, it's a host.

 

[chrismacguy]

I think I will just get a cheap base G4 and hookup one of my existing terabyte external firewire drives then, thanks for the info, I wonder how many terabyte drives I could hook up before the FireWire controller would die....

 

[FF_productions]

I think I will just get a cheap base G4 and hookup one of my existing terabyte external firewire drives then, thanks for the info, I wonder how many terabyte drives I could hook up before the FireWire controller would die....

In theory I think you can daisy chain like 100 with firewire, correct me if I'm wrong..

 

[chrismacguy]

I think thats what Steve Jobs said when he introed it, but I think the controller wouldnt stand for say, 4 1TB external firewire drives, and also, where to put them, Im thinking about a PCI card and dual 1TB Internals (RAID). This would probably be the best solution, as its just storing them, and maybe playing a few at 640*480 / 720*480.

 

[xraydoc]

In theory I think you can daisy chain like 100 with firewire, correct me if I'm wrong..

64, IIRC.

 

[chrismacguy]

I think the FireWire controller might freak out if I used 128 Terabyte drives on the 2 ports on a Graphite G4, would be fun to try, only I dont have enough of them.... Heck, I think me chaining 4 together could be worrying it slightly. Hence why Im thinking about just getting the card and 2 internals, and 2 externals. Plenty of space for all my junk and media (I have far to much invested in iTunes)

 

[FF_productions]

I think the FireWire controller might freak out if I used 128 Terabyte drives on the 2 ports on a Graphite G4, would be fun to try, only I dont have enough of them.... Heck, I think me chaining 4 together could be worrying it slightly. Hence why Im thinking about just getting the card and 2 internals, and 2 externals. Plenty of space for all my junk and media (I have far to much invested in iTunes)

Consider a Drobo, or something that takes several drives in one case, prolly would be less of a hassle then experimenting with daisy-chaining and having 4 drives hangin around..I know this because I've got a bunch of externals dangling hooked up to my Mac Pro, I sure wish I had a whole big enclosure for all this stuff.