Recommendations for HTPC HD streaming to 15+ clients on residential network

[emrystuatha]

I know nothing about networking, and the more I dig, the more technical mumbo jumbo I come across that, let me be completely honest, I don't want to take that much time to try and understand. So, being the honest and direct guy that I am, here is my situation and the assistance that I humbly request:

I am looking to build a HTPC to store all of my movies, music, and games on. The PC and one TV (possibly two) will be hard wired into the network. Additionally, I have one tablet, two cell phones, and two laptops (maybe that second TV) that will connect to the network wirelessly. And, at the tip of the iceburg, I want to allow up to 10 users, outside of my household, to access my media via PLEX/XBMC.

So, what I need is equipment recommendations for this sort of setup. I want to be as future proof as possible but my main emphasis will be speed and security. I will be using residential Comcast Cable internet. Additionally, I live in an older apartment complex where my neighbors use Comcast or Satellite for their internet and TV needs (not sure if that helps, just adding details). The apartment is a towne home, so, for the most part, compact. I want to own my own equipment, so recommendations for the right cable modem, router, switch, hub, cards, etc... whatever I need would be much appreciated. I have done a little peeking into AC1750 and AC1900 routers and it looks like the AC1900's are NOT recommended at this time. I don't really have a budget, so if this equipment comes to a grand or more, then so be it. However, I don't want to spend money on something I won't need or may never potentially utilize, so I'm cost conscious in the regard of not buying what I don't need!

So, with that, I am at the mercy of those kind enough to assist. Thank you, for taking the time to hear me out, and I look forward to any responses I may get!

 

[Kris404]

Media Server:
Plex on a Mac/PC with transcoding capability is your best bet for this kind of setup. If you can make your video library files as compliant as possible to H264/AAC you can even get away without needing to transcode on-the-fly to devices such as phones & tablets with DirectPlay (uses less CPU resources)

System Hardware:
An Intel Haswell-based Core i5/i7 machine with 8/16GB memory should be sufficient for your usecase. Use a smaller Solid-State Drive (SSD) for the boot drive and host the rest of the larger media files on 2/3/4TB HD drives.

Networking Gear:
If you do not have any AC-capable clients, then save some money and get a solid 802.11n router such as Asus N66U or others; check the Wireless Router charts here at SNB.

You may additionally need an 8-port Ethernet switch and/or Wireless Access Point depending on where your other local wired & wireless clients are going to be located.

Internet:
This is going to be a key part of your setup for external users. Most cable connections including TWC, Comcast have pathetic upload speeds (1-2mbps at most) so your external users may not get enough bandwidth to stream simultaneously. Check/test the upload speeds first before committing to the provider (eg. my TWC speed is 30Mbps/5Mbps, lesser plans only give you 2Mbps or less)

 

[emrystuatha]

Kris,

I find it a little amusing that I came to a network site to get equipment recommendations on the 'network' equipment and end up getting recommendations on the whole system build, yet I can have threads on two to three pc building forums and never get a single direct answer to my needs... lol. Thanks!

I don't understand much on the transcoding end of things yet. I'm extremely out of touch on computers. The last time I was really paying attention to this stuff, AMD was releasing Thunderbird processors, lol. What I can say is, I have DVD, HDDVD, and Blu-Ray, and when I get to ripping all of these to HDDs, I intend to rip the DVDs and HDDVDs in ISO files. As for the Blu-Rays, I don't know yet, but some of the reading I have done suggests NOT doing Blu-Rays in ISO formats. I'm still following up on more details though. I'm not too concerned about 3D movies, as I will keep the hard copies of these and and Disney movies I own to playback on my Blu-Ray player.

I will skip the system hardware for a moment and come back to that!

As for the networking clients, how would I determine if any clients (in my house or out of it) would be AC capable? I honestly have no clue. And, to follow that up, would a solid AC router still perform well on a wireless N network? I only ask for trying to be future proof as well? Again forgive the ignorance! When you mention needing a switch or Access Point based on location of other clients, would that be needed if the router already had Ethernet ports built in it (And why an 8 port?)? The longest distance from floor to ceiling of the ground level to first floor would be 18 feet and from back to front of the apartment would be 28 feet. So, doing some quick math, the absolute farthest point possible would be 33ft. However, this is unlikely but the most extreme of distances from inside the home. The clients outside of the household would have to use the PLEX server as some of them are hundreds of miles away. Additionally, do you have a cable modem recommendation as well?

As for the internet, I know what you are saying, and that is of course the biggest contingency to this whole plan. Unless I step up to something like business class internet, I will be limited. Comcast does offer faster ups on their more expensive plans, but I do understand they present the biggest limitations. But, I wish to base my equipment needs off the assumption that this isn't a factor.

Going back to System equipment... Those are sort of the setup options I was leaning towards. I also wish to do ROM and emulation of older games (Atari, NES, SNES Sega, Gameboy, etc...). I'm not into modern gaming at all, so if the motherboard I selected had decent onboard graphics, could I get away with playing a game on an emulator while another client streamed movies off the server simultaneously without hangups or buffering of the streams? Also, perhaps overkill, but the ASRock Z87 Extreme 11/AC catches my attention for all of the ports it has for storage. It even boasts 16 12GBs SAS connections, but I don't know enough about storage solutions to determine what kind of HDDs to buy. I had planned on using a SSD and storage drives like you mentioned, but when it comes to the storage drives, there are so many options that I get bogged down in all the details (Green, black, low power, SATA, Thunderbolt, USB, .... 7200RPM, 5400RPM, 15000RPM) I remember the good old days when all I needed to know was how big of one to get and whether to go Maxtor or WD.

Anyway, I have rambled on long enough, and given more than enough for you or someone else to reply to!

 

[Kris404]

I do remember those Thunderbird/Athlon days.. tough times.. lol

Most of us here are AV enthusiasts and this site sits at the intersection of networking & archiving.

Transcoding:
Sometimes a client may not have the capability to play every type of audio & video format you have (such as tablets, phones). Transcoding is for adapting a source media format to fit the playback client and is resource intensive on the server end (Plex). Avoid having to transcode by being as compliant.

Source Media
If you plan to rip your existing media from DVD, HD-DVD & BD, then use the following methodology:
1) Use a tool called MakeMKV to rip it to a flat MKV file.
2) Feed the resulting MKV file into a free tool called HandBrake.
3) In HandBrake, use a preset that is most compatible to your playback devices.
4) Use the output MP4/M4V as your streaming/playback source; delete the large MKV file from Step 1.

Make ISOs, ONLY if you plan to archive your optical discs. Keep in mind, they will be as big as the disc. Sometimes as large as 9GB (DVD), 45GB (BD) etc so you'll run out of HD space fast. Plus, not all playback devices can play those ISOs directly (XBMC can play them via local disk or network drives)

Wireless AC
Laptops are only now shipping with 802.11ac clients and they are backward compatible with 5GHz N routers. In theory, a good AC router should be a good N router but in practice, most of these 'first gen' devices are not that stable at AC. The next gen AC products should iron out most of the bugs later this year so don't overspend on AC now (keep it less than <$100 like AC56U). In fact, IMO if you have a working N setup, don't change it just yet.

Wireless Coverage
33 feet is not a lot so you should be fine without a WAP but watch out for dead zones and walls at your place.

Switch
I found most of the time, you run out of wired ports on a 4-port router, hence the recommendation for a cheap 8-port switch only if necessary.

Cable Modem
ARRIS/Motorola SurfBoard 6141, a DOCSIS 3.0 compliant modem is recommended. Avoid a modem-router combo like the plague

System
The onboard graphics on newer Haswell based systems are sufficient for light gaming; no sweat doing arcade emulation or even 3D on these machines. ASRock Z87 Extreme 11/AC is very excessive indeed

You do not need SAS drives, those are for Enterprises. Throughput from plain 'ol cheap SATA3 5400RPM WD Green/Red drives would be fine (Red are made for NAS).

Although it is for a different purpose, take a look at this link for system builds in increasing order of price, complexity & capability: http://www.tonymacx86.com/section/295-customac.html

 

[emrystuatha]

With regards to the networking equipment, that is my first priority above all else like time NOW! I'm completely building from scratch, and at this time am using one of those terrible rented Gateway thingys from Comcast. I absolutely hate the mother Smurfer! So, those recommendations are paramount, as I better learn about what sort of computer to build. So, with that in mind, and seeing we are on the verge of a class shift in networking, I will go with the cheaper N routers for now and upgrade that later as AC gains greater adoption!

One of the key reasons for making the ISO formats is that I "may lose" the hard copies of my DVDs and HD DVDs. And, HD DVD will be a file size of nearly 15-19GBs per disc. So, recognizing that I am at a high risk of "not being able to find" the original copies anymore, I want those in ISO formats. These unexplained losses may be what helps cover the cost of all these much needed HDDs.

The Extreme 11/ac I can tell is definitely OK for this system. The main reason for its enticement seems to be the amount of SAS/SATA ports it has on it. However, while you went to sleep today, I have been reading site after site, forum after forum, and have come to the conclusion that what I really need is a media server. I need a CPU/Motherobard that supports ECC-registered memory, is low power consuming at idle speeds, but beefy enough to handle ISO or mkv transcoding for multiple clients simultaneously, the proper ECC-registed memory and quantity, at least 40TBs of HDD space and the necessary cards to support that many HDDs as I can only guess the motherboard may not have that many slots for them, a small SSD for the OS and system operations, and the right power supply, case, and fans to drive this puppy. I already have a UPS system (Tripplite 1500+ model) which will have a power conditioner (Tributaries PWRC-T200) plugged into it. And, while I need at least 40TBs, I will need a big enough power supply and case to support room for expansion. I sort of copied and pasted that bit from another post I am on. The reason for looking into this way of doing things is so that I can utilize ZFS data integrity protection. Given my concerns for "potentially losing" original copies of my media, it has come to my attention that no RAID setup will properly guarantee protection from file corruption or losses if more than one HDD should somehow fail simultaneously. I need something with a bit greater guarantee of protection for my media files.

 

[Kris404]

One of the key reasons for making the ISO formats is that I "may lose" the hard copies of my DVDs and HD DVDs. And, HD DVD will be a file size of nearly 15-19GBs per disc. So, recognizing that I am at a high risk of "not being able to find" the original copies anymore, I want those in ISO formats. These unexplained losses may be what helps cover the cost of all these much needed HDDs.

Since archiving is important then I would suggest investing in a NAS rather than building your own. Purpose built NAS use less power, run silent, have integrated management features, upgrade path & smaller footprint.

Take a look at Synology DS1813+, a terrific NAS with storage expansion capabilities via adding up to two DX513 expansion units. It can also plug into an UPS (via USB cable) and shut itself down if you're perilously running out of battery.

RAID is obviously not backup and cannot guarantee against data corruption. You can do 2-disk redundancy with RAID-6 for better resiliency. But replicating/backing up to another disk array or NAS is your only backup option for large amounts of data.

At this point I should tell you what I have
Synology DS509+ (with 5 x 3TB RAID5 = 12TB volume)
Synology DX5 Expansion (with 5 x 3TB RAID5 = 12TB volume)

I have all of my BD ISOs on the DX5 expansion unit volume and that unit is on auto-standby most of the time. My other derived media, MKVs, M4Vs, AVIs, M4As, MP3s are hosted on the main volume and shared via SMB and AFP for Plex Media Server & XBMC access.

At another place I also have a Synology DS413j (4 x 4TB RAID5 = 12TB). I replicate some data to this unit.

Some NAS even have Plex capability built into the NAS but limited to Direct Play and transcoding is a hit or miss so a dedicated Mac or PC is best for that purpose with the media safely on a redundant NAS.