Pi Nas / Media Server/player

Sitting here with a cold/flu bored to tears but with itchy fingers! Been mulling over getting / making a NAS for a while to serve the whole house. As ever thinking doing it on the cheap for a bit of fun so here's my rough thoughts:

1) Raspberry Pi Model B+ - from CPC with an 8GB card - £31.00 or the A+ model and a card for about £20.00

2) Enclosure - redundant, low spec DVD player casing - will sit under the TV and mean only one mains lead to the set up. Plenty of space inside too - FREE

3) USB powered hub - will sit inside the DVD casing - CPC again - £5.00

4) 1TB "storage" SATA HDD - from the existing pc - currently formatted NTFS - as a family we're all always accessing this and dragging stuff off via USB etc -  FREE

5) Long Cat-5 lead to the router

Now the questions:

6) Wanting only one mains lead in I want to put the psu/psus in the one enclosure. Really looking for a psu that will supply the Pi, the SATA HDD and the hub. 

7) Getting the power and data to/from an ordinary SATA internal drive? There are adapters but these look expensive

8) Was hoping I can leave the 1TB "as is" without formatting but not sure if this is possible.

9) The BIG question is WHAT am I aiming for here.........not sure whether a stand alone NAS or a media hub/NAS i.e. a a functioning pc under the telly as well as acting as a NAS? 

10) Will this be something that stays on all the time or is it something that can be made to "self boot" on power up and be ready accessible straight away?

Any thoughts appreciated! Cheers.

Any thoughts appreciated!

just get a synology...

6) Wanting only one mains lead in I want to put the psu/psus in the one enclosure. Really looking for a psu that will supply the Pi, the SATA HDD and the hub. 

Should be possible but may need to hack the psu to bits to make it fit in dvd box. Depends on the HDD. is it a 2.5" laptop type that will happily power from a usb cable or a 3.5" desktop hdd that is likely to need 12v as well as 5v

7) Getting the power and data to/from an ordinary SATA internal drive? There are adapters but these look expensive

Again, dependant on HDD type, get a cheap external enclosure. if it's 2.5", get one of these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/External-2-5-SATA-to-USB-3-0-Hard-Drive-Caddy-HDD-Enclosure-Laptop-Drive-Black-/191097628497?pt=UK_Collectables_HardDriveEnclosures_RL&hash=item2c7e4e6751 you can leave the metal casing off if you like and all the gubbins is part of one end. Nice and small

8) Was hoping I can leave the 1TB "as is" without formatting but not sure if this is possible.

Not too sure on this one, R-pi distros used to have issues writing to NTFS, not sure if this still stands

9) The BIG question is WHAT am I aiming for here.........not sure whether a stand alone NAS or a media hub/NAS i.e. a a functioning pc under the telly as well as acting as a NAS? 

Following examples like this you use a full distro anyway so technically will work as a pc. Again not sure if there is a fully honed in NAS setup for R-Pi. I looked at it last year and there weren't any finished products

10) Will this be something that stays on all the time or is it something that can be made to "self boot" on power up and be ready accessible straight away?

The boot times for R-Pi linux distros are pretty slow so probably best to leave live 24/7

Cheers for the comments, the two how to links I'd already come across. The HDD I want to use is  a 3.5" STA jobbie btw. Anyway, power; I happen to have spare a 5A psu which is quite low profile. Once stripped down and the fan re-positioned it's about 65mm total height. I reckon that should give me all the power I need with a link or switch across the black/green of the ATX plug:



Then the case, unfashionably tall Dansai DVD player. Nothing special and going begging, has a nice removable front section and a fairly plain rear for any ports I might want to add though the base is a bit of a PIA - all pressings and slots for things to clip into:







Now.........to sort porting the data from the SATA...........

Canoeboy said:

NTFS isnt  problem and USB 3 is better for speed

If you use NFTS and USB its simple to unplug and access all your data from most pcs without any problem

Id suggest using 2 HDD's and striping them for redundancy

Quite a good how to here

Click to expand...

I thought the Pi B+ had x4 USB 2.0 ports..............is it worth then getting anything "USB 3.0" for this project?

I figured this from eBay would give me the bits I need (and some spares) to connect to the SATA drive - assuming I supply the psu:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-2-0-to-IDE-SATA-5-25-S-ATA-3-5-2-5-Adapter-Cable-UK-seller-/221271423640?pt=UK_Computing_Drive_Cables_Adapters&hash=item3384cdfa98

Costs are racking up!  :lol:

Canoeboy said:

No, my bad - R Pi is USB 2 only at present

Click to expand...

No worries! Just ordered that SATA kit for £5.90 and a £2.49 clear case for the Pi.

Need some panel mounting USB, HDMI and Ethernet connectors now with short leads to let into the front/back panel...........CPC do them but not cheap!

Canoeboy said:

Speak to Kerching$$$$ 

He is a regular and gets stuff cheap  :innocent

Don't tell Andy though :slap

Click to expand...

Cheers. TBH they're peanuts on eBay from just looking there. Going to take some careful drilling & needle filing to get the cut outs tidy!

Onoff said:

I thought the Pi B+ had x4 USB 2.0 ports..............is it worth then getting anything "USB 3.0" for this project?

I figured this from eBay would give me the bits I need (and some spares) to connect to the SATA drive - assuming I supply the psu:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-2-0-to-IDE-SATA-5-25-S-ATA-3-5-2-5-Adapter-Cable-UK-seller-/221271423640?pt=UK_Computing_Drive_Cables_Adapters&hash=item3384cdfa98

Costs are racking up!  :lol:

Click to expand...

I have one of those adapters, I got mine with a psu for £12 iirc, the psu packed up after about a fortnight,

I have a spare lead hanging out the back of the pc now,  

My Pi is sitting under the TV pretty useless now... Loads of the torrent sites (icefilms included) have been blocked by mine and many other ISPs

Unless someone knows a work around

Sounds good however I use Raspbmc on my Pi so it sort of defeats the object

Yipeeee

I've found a proxy site and it works

http://bit.ly/1rPhuAi

Ignore...

Canoes been & gone

Blue Duck said:

Ignore...

Canoes been & gone

Click to expand...

No I changed the link to a bitly link that links to google so not a direct link from TEF.

Don't tar me with the paddlers oars.

Do you like your new avatar ?

Cheers

Mind you, it only worked the once. Doesn't any more

works here

So................is it practical to build my unit to do two things simply by swapping over the SD card in the Pi? As in have it as a media server with a couple of mirrored discs (will just be the one for now) in there to serve the whole network then by changing the card for one with RaspBMC connect direct to the telly (where it will live underneath anyway). Or can I do it all with just the one card?

Just waiting for bits to come in now. Ordered the panel mounting connectors with leads on from Hong Kong as in £1 ea for most of them inc postage!

Im confused,,,, easily done really,

ok, I dont use mine as a total server, but, I do have shared files on it that are accessed from my whole network,

and, I use it as a media player, and a [sort of] normal os as well,

steptoe said:

Im confused,,,, easily done really,

ok, I dont use mine as a total server, but, I do have shared files on it that are accessed from my whole network,

and, I use it as a media player, and a [sort of] normal os as well,

Click to expand...

Sounds like what I'm aiming at! Do you leave it on all the time? 

& do you use with a remote or just keyboard and mouse.....wireless?

I use it with my phone, theres an app for that you know, 

yep, its on all the time, to make it a 'server' as such, simply make a folder on the HDD and make it 'shared' , then put every other folder inside that one,

that is probably a very very basic way of doing it, but, it works for me,

I reboot once every couple of weeks or so, just to make sure all updates are ok etc,

mind, its been offline since middle of Dec while I try reconfigure all my network stuff etc,

trying to get some powerlines into shed instead of dodgy wifi connection.

steptoe said:

I use it with my phone, theres an app for that you know, 

yep, its on all the time, to make it a 'server' as such, simply make a folder on the HDD and make it 'shared' , then put every other folder inside that one,

that is probably a very very basic way of doing it, but, it works for me,

I reboot once every couple of weeks or so, just to make sure all updates are ok etc,

mind, its been offline since middle of Dec while I try reconfigure all my network stuff etc,

trying to get some powerlines into shed instead of dodgy wifi connection.

Click to expand...

Cheers. I just bought a pair of these from Currys cheapest I could find & works well:

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing-accessories/networking/power-line-networking/tp-link-tl-pa411kit-av500-powerline-adapter-starter-kit-16842033-pdt.html?gclid=CjwKEAiAw56lBRCs29jB9uOvkygSJADnD3-6Q57Sya81kSSGglCv1oK_eBBcQwpvZbT7zV1tquYFcRoC-6Hw_wcB&srcid=198&cmpid=ppc~gg~~~Exact&mctag=gg_goog_7904&s_kwcid=AL!3391!3!48502155499!!!g!81083078899!&ef_id=VJ1NPgAAAMbLlWqj:20150103221022:s