RAID vs NAS for HTPC setup

[Nathan Hejnicki]

God this question is going to be a mess, but I'll try my best. I really apologize if anything I write is unclear or sounds like someone who doesn't know computers, but this is a new area of learning for me.

Here's what I want to be able to do, either all at once or in "baby steps"
-Rip my DVD collection to something digital, preferably my PC
-Have those available "media server style" to my network, which includes a PS3, my wife's laptop, and a "streamer box" which is just an old laptop converted to Linux in the living room. Preferably, I'd like to be able to map whatever this ends up being as a network drive on at minimum my wife's laptop and my PC if it's not hosted by my PC.
-Eventually, when we get cable, be able to do a TV tuner type thing and PVR on my computer. This is more of a "bonus points if it works" thing than a requirement
-Have a place to back up my personal photos, important docs, etc, as well as have that location be redundant in some way

Knowing those goals, here is what I have so far:
OS Drive:1TB WD Blue drive, split into 2 partitions- OS and Data (I just like them separate, i know it's not really a benefit performance wise)
SSD:128GB Samsung 830 SSD which basically hosts Steam games and (when I'm playing) world of warcraft.
Mobo: AsRock Fatal1ty 990FX Killer
CPU:FX8350 8 core AMD

My question: what would be the best way, in hardware terms, to be able to accomplish the stated goals? Would I want to do like a RAID 5 array of 3+ 1-2TB drives and split it into half backup, half media hosting? Would it be more economical/make more sense in some way to do like a true NAS appliance? I would love if you guys could give me some recommendations on what to buy/build as I am very new into the foray of storage and backups and RAID and such.

I suppose I should mention that the max budget to not get stabbed for suggesting spending this much money is about... 400 bucks.

I really appreciate you guys taking time to read this and all suggestions/tutelage are appreciated.

 

[corroded]

First look @ Plex... plex.tv

I am running it on a dedicated NAS (FreeNAS) I have it on my Uncle Ubuntu Desktop... and I am building a dedicated machine on Linux (CENTOS7)

It will run on Windows as well. Nice tool... You can watch your Movies and listen to your music from your computer, iPhone/pad and Android (phone/tablet) too...

 

[Nathan Hejnicki]

First look @ Plex... plex.tv

I am running it on a dedicated NAS (FreeNAS) I have it on my Uncle Ubuntu Desktop... and I am building a dedicated machine on Linux (CENTOS7)

It will run on Windows as well. Nice tool... You can watch your Movies and listen to your music from your computer, iPhone/pad and Android (phone/tablet) too...

I've looked at Plex as well as stuff like PlayOn. I'm not so much worried about the software as there are tons of options. I'm mainly wondering if doing a RAID setup within my desktop would be better or worse than a standalone NAS, since doing it in my desktop is cheaper.

 

[corroded]

a RAID will not really benefit here... You can run it off a single xTB drive... Just have an external backup... for paranoia sake

So, for the $400 you can get 2 3TB Red drives, and use one as a media server source and the other as an offline backup

 

[Solandri]

1) RAID is for redundancy. That is, if one of the hard disks dies, your server keeps functioning as before. So RAID is important for things like corporate servers running mission-critical apps, where you need 100% uptime. It's unnecessary for a home media/file server, though there's nothing stopping you from doing it if you have money to burn and want that redundancy.

2) RAID is not a backup. Even if you have a RAID 5 array, you still need to back up the data to an external drive. Why? Because if you accidentally delete a file from your RAID array, the parity from RAID 5 won't do you any good. The file and its parity data will both be gone. You need an off-line backup if you want protection from things like accidental deletions. (You want it off-site as well if you want protection from things like burglaries and house fires.)

3) You must factor electricity costs into your budget. A quick google search on the FX-8350 says a system using it draws nearly 100 Watts idle. If your electricity rates are close to the U.S. average of $0.12/kWh, then the wattage is about equal to how many dollars it'll cost you to keep the device on 24/7 for a year. So 100W = about $100/yr. In contrast, a decent NAS with 3 drives will consume about 25-35W idle. So using your current system as a media server (leaving it on 24/7) will cost you about $65-$75 more per year in electricity than buying a NAS. A $400 NAS will have paid for itself via reduced electricity costs in a bit over 5 years.

Of the four tasks you've outlined, the media server and photo/doc backups can be handled by a NAS. The PVR can probably be handled by the old laptop in your living room (though you'll probably need something like a HD Homerun to act as a network tuner as I don't think there are many tuners which support Linux).

Ripping DVDs and Blu-rays is the only thing that requires a full-blown PC (assuming you want to re-encode it, not save humongus 8GB DVD and 35GB Blu-ray files). You can just do the encoding on your regular gaming PC (which you turn off when it's not in use so as to save money on electricity), then copy the files onto the NAS for storage.

If you plan to do other things with the server (I run virtual machines on mine) or need to transcode video, then that might justify the extra electricity cost of using a PC as a server. But for most people it makes a lot more economic sense to use a NAS. Heck, if your router allows you to plug in a USB hard drive, you may want to look into that as an option for your "media server." They tend to be abysmally slow (about 3-5 MB/s max), but if the most you're going to do is stream one movie at a time, that may be more than enough.