July 20, 201213 yr Ok, i looked through the forums and found a post (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=6076.msg72548#msg72548) that i thought would answer my question but for the life of me the responses don't directly (or indirectly?) say, or perhaps i am just that dense. What I am really hoping is to have a media server that can also play video directly on the TV, i don't need the networking or to buy an extra computer (one to serve files and another to play?) and have redundancy using different sized drives (I have two 750gb, two 1.5tb, and four 2tb drives so regular RAID 5/6 wouldn't work great for this i don't think). WHS's "Drive Extender" + XBMC seemed like the easiest route but i have heard horror stories with drv ext and the fact that its no longer supported didn't help. It seems i could do XBMC on a FreeNAS ZFS setup but wrapping my head around ZFS and LVM is a bit more than i care to take on if i don't have to. So, is it possible to install XBMC on an UnRAID box and how difficult would it be? (I have seen the wiki on unraid and slackware but as its been literally more than a decade since i have seriously messed with slackware [learned alot, but have forgotten alot since then too] [went the lazy route and usually use suse nowadays] I am not eager to take that on esp after reading over it). Any suggestions would really be appreciated! Cheers, -Gaiko
July 20, 201213 yr Unraid is a storage system, xbmc is a media player.. The regular way would be to have unraid as storage system in the basement and an htpc under your tv... xbmc would be on the htpc.. You probably do not want a box with a lot of disks sitting under your tv..
July 20, 201213 yr Author Thanks Helmonder, I think i got that unraid is a storage system but if a computer can boot from a usb stick with unraid on it then i assume there is an OS yes it is running on top of? (admittedly my understanding of the def of OS is limited) As for the setup, I actually have my "computer room" right next to my living room and (through the wall) the TV and computer would be less than a meter apart (and there is already a hole in the wall) so for me the noise would not be an issue. More of an issue is spending a pile on a fileserver then spending some more on an HTPC. But back to the unraid as a storage system, does that mean i could (perhaps w/o too much difficulty?) just install unraid on something like a SuSE box and use it that way? (hopefully less difficult than the slackware seems to be). Thanks! -Gaiko
July 20, 201213 yr Unraid is a self contained OS based on linux. You do not run it "on top" of something you allready have running, you just boot a system with an unraid flashdrive and the unraid server will load.. If you want to run xbmc on the same box you would need to compile it specially, you would also need to add specific drivers for the video-out to the unraid setup, otherwise it would not work.. Unless you really like tinkering I would invest in a cheap media player and have it stream from the plain vanilla unraid system..
July 20, 201213 yr Do yourself a favor and get a small fanless AMD fusion based HTPC and install XBMC on it. Let unRAID be just the file server and then the HTPC can do the rest.
July 20, 201213 yr I think that the OP thought unRAID is a stand alone application and not a custom OS-App all in one.. In theory, Win8 with storage spaces should be able to do what the OP wants out of the box. but it is to early to tell how good of a job it will do. Personally I would go with the 2+ PC solution. an unraid server and then he can add as many XBMC htpcs as he wants. you should be able to get an XBMC compatible htpc for under $200.
July 20, 201213 yr you should be able to get an XBMC compatible htpc for under $200. Hi i don't want to hijack this thread but is there any list of compatible htpc for XBMC? Also how much noise/dB a machine makes?
July 20, 201213 yr you should be able to get an XBMC compatible htpc for under $200. Hi i don't want to hijack this thread but is there any list of compatible htpc for XBMC? Also how much noise/dB a machine makes? Best asked on the XBMC forum
July 20, 201213 yr Hi i don't want to hijack this thread but is there any list of compatible htpc for XBMC? Also how much noise/dB a machine makes? Best asked on the XBMC forum Indeed, and it may depend on which version of xbmc you want to run, and on what o/s. I have opted for OpenELEC as a small footprint build and have ordered an AMD E450 board (Asus E45M1-I Deluxe) to host it.
July 20, 201213 yr you should be able to get an XBMC compatible htpc for under $200. Hi i don't want to hijack this thread but is there any list of compatible htpc for XBMC? Also how much noise/dB a machine makes? Best asked on the XBMC forum Yeah you probably right. Just hoped for some experience here.
July 20, 201213 yr you should be able to get an XBMC compatible htpc for under $200. Hi i don't want to hijack this thread but is there any list of compatible htpc for XBMC? Also how much noise/dB a machine makes? Best asked on the XBMC forum Yeah you probably right. Just hoped for some experience here. Check out the hardware forum at the XBMC forums. Many knowledgeable people there, and you can look at what others have built. Depending on the hardware you choose your XBMC install can be pretty close to silent.
July 20, 201213 yr you should be able to get an XBMC compatible htpc for under $200. Hi i don't want to hijack this thread but is there any list of compatible htpc for XBMC? Also how much noise/dB a machine makes? Best asked on the XBMC forum Yeah you probably right. Just hoped for some experience heree. personally I have been using 2 atv2s which have been pretty good but limited to 720p, but they are silent and super low power, if I were you I would just wait a few weeks and find a nice Android based device,I might even trade in my atv2s for some myself. check this out . http://xbmc.org/theuni/2012/07/13/xbmc-for-android/
July 20, 201213 yr i run my htpc on a IBM think Centre w/ a HDMI out low profile ATI 5450, works flawlessly on win7
July 23, 201213 yr Author Wow lots if info, thanks to all. I was curious about using unraid with slackware but i have been reading up and it just seems to be more trouble than it is worth (for a novice like me). It seems that a fileserver + htpc is the most reasonable route though it is a pity that there isn't a simpler all in one option. I posted (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=21616.0) about the setup that i found to be the most cost effective i think, its a bit of overkill in some ways (processor/mem) hence my thinking "why not have it run everything?" but anyway, thanks for all the input. Cheers, -Gaiko
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