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Ask Slashdot: Building a Home Media Center/Small Server In a Crawlspace?
An anonymous reader writes "I've decided it's time for me to build a separate machine specifically for use as a Media Center/Small Home Server. My wife and I haven't had cable TV in years, instead relying entirely on Netflix, other streaming sites, and hard copies we've bought over the years. Having just finished ripping our entire media collection (CDs, DVDs, and even our vinyls and VHS with the help of a capture card and some sweet digital voodoo) to a couple HDDs, I'm feeling froggy. Up until now we've been using WDTV Live, and it's been pretty snazzy, but I want to upgrade to a dedicated media machine instead of piggybacking off of my office computer. It'll be a Windows based machine utilizing Plex, and it's going in the crawlspace of the house. The crawlspace in question is unfinished, but I do have a dry concrete slab down there where I can put/mount/assemble something. Cooling won't be an issue obviously, and I am keeping a close eye on hardware specs with regards to moisture. It is still a crawlspace though. What would be a good setup to to house the hardware? Priorities being to safeguard against moisture, vermin, and dirt. Modified PC Tower? Rack? Build an enclosure? Something I haven't considered?
Please assume I'm stubborn and absolutely dead-set on putting it in the crawlspace to avoid the discussion devolving into the 'best' place to put a media machine." Do you have a question to Ask Slashdot? Fire away, with details, using our submissions form.
Please assume I'm stubborn and absolutely dead-set on putting it in the crawlspace to avoid the discussion devolving into the 'best' place to put a media machine." Do you have a question to Ask Slashdot? Fire away, with details, using our submissions form.
I run Plex at home and running a Plex-based media server in a confined space is going to be a pain in the ass for two reasons:
1. Heat
2. Maintenance
Your pirate, sorry "media backup" collection, is going to grow the more you start using this box for household entertainment. 4 terabytes turns into 8 etc, etc. Having easy access to your drive array is important, not to mention disk failure, and general maintenance (like dusting your near-constantly-in-use array).
And our old friend airflow, again, always spinning drives, CPUs running near peak to push the limits of decoding that hi-def content we all love, if it doesn't reboot like a drunken sailor walks then it's going to have a high rate of failure and you're gonna be cursing the day you stuffed everything in the smallest crevice possible
Get a decent tower with plenty of low RPM cooling options and buy a hot-swap disk array enclosure with a minimum of 8 drive bays
Could also be the wife doesnt want any unsightly computers in the main area and the crawlspace is directly under it and drilling a hole is easy.
But yeah, being that stubborn is never a good thing.
Look into encapsulating the crawl space. I bought 20 mil plastic for the purpose, insulated the perimeter, and sealed all the vents. Humidity levels are now the same as inside the house, almost always cooler than the house too. The only issue I have at all is that by the middle of winter any areas that are tile feel a bit chilly over the cold ground, but not that bad. Feels really nice in the summer too which takes up more of the year here than winter.
While I don't have a server in my crawl space yet I do keep several other components down there. This includes my wireless router, HDHomeRun tuner, VOIP, and a small switch. They've been in the crawl space for about 4 years now. I live in a dry climate and haven't worried about humidity or corrosion. Here's what I've run into:
-dust: We live near some farms and their is always a layer of dust in the crawl space. My devices are fanless and I haven't noticed problems.
-spiders: Webs everywhere. I hope they don't get inside any equipment.
-power: We have an existing light fixture in the crawlspace so I installed a GFCI outlet tied into that. I'm not an electrician so I just hope I don't burn the house down.
-access: It is a nuisance to get into the space. The access is just a hole in the floor in a closet. I have to drop down and crawl in the dust to get physical access. But I rarely have to do this.
-network: I wanted my devices hardwired on my Gbit router and so I ran my own Cat 5 wiring and install ports in the walls, etc.
Dust and access are what have made me hesitate to put a server down there. I have enough dust problems with the desktops in the house that having to go down into the crawlspace to periodically clean or otherwise get physical access isn't appealing.
In the next house I'm making sure I have a switch closet!
If it's warm and the crawl space isn't, it will draw bugs like the dickens. Maybe research those blue light LEDs and see if they really kill arthropods as well as they claim. Then you'll have mice. If the humidity doesn't kill the machine, all the mouse urine will.
http://www.stealth.com/Waterpr...
Product description for those too lazy to click:
Sealed to IP67/NEMA 6 specifications The new Stealth WPC-525F is a rugged PC that is completely water-tight, surviving liquids, chemicals, dust and dirt intrusion and meeting IP67/NEMA 6 environmental specifications. Designed without cooling fans the rugged aluminum chassis acts as a heat sink to dissipate internal heat and provide noise free operation. The durable small form PC operates from a wide range of DC input power (6 - 36VDC) making it a perfect fit for mobile and transportation based applications. Stealth products are ideal for demanding applications within the Industrial, Commercial, Scientific Research, Military, Public Safety, Utility, Marine, Transportation, mining and Telecommunications markets
If it were me, I'd probably just plug a 2.5" external HDD into a raspberry pi and huck it into a sealed 5 gallon bucket. But then again, I wouldn't be putting my computer in the crawlspace to begin with, so good luck.
Personally, I would just stick a beaglebone black, or an rPi inside a conduit junction enclosure, and install it into the wall that way as a utility box.
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You can get really fancy, and use a housing intended for circuit breakers instead, and get a fancy door that way. Marking and drilling some mini-ITX ground stud holes, one could install a pretty powerfu home media system into a wall that way, and have it reasonably serviceable/upgradable.
Personally though, I dont see the need for more than the small cube conduit junction linked above. A vanity wall panel can be installed on top of the drywall just below the box in the wall, with a button to reset the box, a USB interface, and an ethernet interface, routed out of the conduit. Hell, you could put the hdmi output on that panel too and have an in-wall home media server that way.
sealing it really good with silicone weather sealant, and installing it with lots of silica desicant packs (really, any good geek should have lots of these by now), coupled with the low power draw of these kinds of devices already-- It's a total slamdunk, IMO.
One could route a heatpipe exchanger through a small slit in the top of the conduit (rubber sheeting with slit, oval hole in conduit box, followed up with sealant.) and put a heatsink on the surface of the wall, if heat is a serious worry. I personally would put the conduit BELOW the insulation in the wall, (insulation is between the top of the box, and the drywall, leaving the back of the box in the uninsulated part of the wall) so that it has good exchange, and use the conduit box itself as a big honking heatsink.
$3k for a media server is outrageous.
I'm using a TS-119+ with a 2TB disk inside. It's sitting in my wiring closet.
It's running MythTV for my TV/UPnP server, MythWeb for programming, Mediatomb to serve photos/videos via UPnP, and mt-daapd as an iTunes Music Server. I use PS/3s for the TV front-ends, and Roku Soundbridge 500s, 1000s, and 2000s for the music players.
It's about as close to silent as you get - I think it's fanless (you can see I'm not concerned enough about noise to find out). And it uses about 6w when it's idling.
I got into NAS solutions after I figured out running my MythTV system 24x7 was like leaving a 100 watt lightbulb on all the time, even when I didn't need it. I measured my old beige-box PC with a watt meter: a continuous 95 watts. And loud fans.
The QNAP delights me. All I could ask for that it doesn't do well is transcoding. There's just not enough CPU for it. But that'll come in time with some other NAS unit, or with offloading it via scripting to a full PC or Mac, when I get around to it.