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Windows 7 as a NAS/HTPC OS

post #1 of 7
6/14/12 at 4:37pm
Thread Starter 
I need some help for setting up a home server. I’ve tried looking online but the solutions aren’t very specific to my needs.

I want to run a home server from my old PC because I want all my media files to be on the server so I can access it from multiple PC and Xbox 360 but I need it to do some things:

I need Windows Media Centre so I can steam my media to my Xbox 360
I need the server to be always on but be low power
I need it to be accessible from all the PC's in the house
I need it to show as a storage drive for all the PCs in the house
I need it to host games that my buddies and I can play over LAN

I was thinking to use Windows Home Server 2011 but it doesn't have Windows Media Centre which is a big deal breaker so I want to know if normal Windows 7 ultimate with sharing set up correctly can be used as an efficient home NAS/HTPC.

My old PC specs:

Packard Bell Micro ATX Case
OEM ASUS Packard Bell MOBO
AMD Athlon Duel Core 2.0GHZ
4GB DDR2 667 RAM
ATI HD 5770
1TB HDD (updrading to 2 TB soon)

Any advice?
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post #2 of 7
6/15/12 at 2:04am
Thread Starter 
Anything?
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post #3 of 7
6/15/12 at 10:20am
It's considered good practice to not "bump" your thread until 24 hours have passed.

With that said; I'm fairly sure WHS 2011 can interface with the 360 and play videos without issue.
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post #4 of 7
6/20/12 at 11:24am
There are many programs out there that will emulate a server on your exisitng OS... like meezmo or something of the short, if you google it you can stream anything within format to the xbox, it sees it a a server.... Some even will encode them as you stream them in the correct format for the xbox to read, i used this for a year or 2 when i had my xbox and wanted to watch movies, or music... very simple to set up just put all your files you want to stream and point the server it creates (part of the setup process... which takes all of 10 min ) and it will upload them and you can just select it from opions. Its very easy to set up and does not need you to configure anything through the router (unless your anal like me and do it anyway... )thumb.gif
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post #5 of 7
6/20/12 at 10:55pm
I am currently using W7 x64 as my server and it works well. I only stream to XBMC though, so keep that in mind. That being said, as long as the files you have on your box are what your Xbox can read then you should not have any issues from that standpoint. The main reason not to use a standard OS for a server is because it requires more robust hardware than say a UnRaid or Freenas box.
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post #6 of 7
6/20/12 at 11:08pm
Steam to xbox? Sure any version of windows can do that.
Low power? Honestly not much you can do there unless your able to downclock your CPU if your willing to sacrifice some performance.
If your properly set up the network, computer and files should already be visible to other pcs...
Share your C drive or a folder in C drive and dump all the media in there and done.

Your CPU and RAM probably meet the "minium requirements" for a game server good enough to host something like... minecraft. But servers do like more ram and more cores if you can afford it. And of course you don't want to be down clocking in this case.

So yes windows 7 will work. I prefer it actually compared to other streaming distros because i have a lot of ISO images, different codecs and containers etc. which make it a pain in the ass to view videos outside of windows.
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post #7 of 7
6/21/12 at 1:01am
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another vote for XBMC  here, you can either share your media drive and then point xbmc to the shared drive, or share the files using xbmc  with upnp enabled.


Edited by spice003 - 6/21/12 at 1:07am
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