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Ask Slashdot: Easiest Way To Consolidate Household Media?

Posted by timothy on from the one-way-data-transfer-is-much-simpler dept.

First time accepted submitter Lordfly writes "The wife and I have started looking to buy a house. In the spirit of that, I've been giving away books, CDs, and DVDs to 'downsize' the pile of crap I'll have to lug around when we do find the right place. That got me thinking about digital files. I'm perfectly okay with giving up (most) books, CDs, and DVD cases. The only music I buy are MP3s anyway, and we stream most everything else if we wanted to watch a show or movie. That being said, I have a desktop, my wife has an old Macbook, we both have tablets, and I also have an Android smartphone. I'd like to set up something on an extra Windows box shoved in a closet that lets me dump every digital file we have (photos, music, ebooks, movies) and then doles it out as necessary to all of our devices. Unfortunately my best computer geek days are likely behind me (photography and cooking have consumed me since), so while I CAN schlep around a command line, I've lost most of my knowledge, so go easy on the 'just apt-get FubarPackageInstaller.gzip and rd -m Arglebargle' stuff. Something easy enough for my wife to use would be a major plus. So: What's the best way to make your own personal 'cloud'?"

5 of 272 comments (clear)

  1. An ultimately simple concept... by jedidiah · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...you just have a fileshare. Create two if you want to be fancy. One is read only and is a media horde and the other is a scratch and play area that everyone in the house can use.

    Use any tech you want. Use any OS you want.

    Just create two samba shares and have at it.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    1. Re:An ultimately simple concept... by CastrTroy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I would probably just ignore RAID for a home backup solution. Just have a job run nightly ( or ever couple of hours) to copy off the files to a backup drive. Once in a while purge files off the backup that no longer exist on the first drive. For home purposes, it's probably not terribly important that every file is mirrored instantly, and the added cost and complexity of RAID probably isn't worth it for most people.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  2. Legality? by TheLink · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Are you going to keep the receipts of purchase around? If not, how are you going to prove all your digital copies are legal? Particularly the ones from physical media that you no longer possess.

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    1. Re:Legality? by ArcadeMan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Even with a receipt, if he gives or sells a DVD then he gives up the license for that movie. He could give/sell the boxes away and simply keep the original discs inside a tower like you get when buying 100's of blank discs. That way he would still be legal and still own the licenses but cut on the space required for them.

      Another idea: apart from those stupid printed-directly-on-cardboard boxes, most DVDs come in plastic boxes so he could keep the printed sleeves in a binder and the discs in a tower.

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    2. Re:Legality? by Nerdfest · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why should he have to? "Innocent until proven guilty" should still apply until the copyright mafias completely buy out the government.