50 MA XIMUMPC MARCH 2006
how (^2) IMPROVING YOUR PC EXPERIENCE, ONE STEP AT A TIME
Copying Your Media
If your media
server is destined
to sit in a closet,
disconnected from
everything but
power and Ethernet,
it really doesn’t
need a soundcard. If
you’re going to set it up in your living room, however, you’ll
defi nitely want a good, stand-alone soundcard. We recom-
mend the X-Fi XtremeMusic. It’s a good value, and delivers
superior sound quality, suitable for playback on a high-end
home theater system.
The other compo-
nent you should
choose with care
is your case. We
mentioned that a
media server can
double as a great
living room PC. If
that’s your goal,
a slim-line case,
such as Antec’s
Minuet or Overture
boxes, or even a
small formfactor or mini-ATX case, will fi t right in with your
home theater equipment, although future expandability will
be limited. If you’re going to throw your PC into a closet,
any beige box will do.
This is the one time that it’s acceptable to use inte-
grated video for your rig. Anything more is overkill, and
anything with fans will just make more noise. The only
reason to use a stand-alone videocard in a media server is
if you need to connect it to a device that requires a com-
ponent input, like an HDTV. As far as RAM goes, procure
at least a gig.
The OS
Putting the Pieces Together
At this point, you need to assemble your rig, just like any other sys-
tem. Build your rig, and then install Windows and all the necessary
drivers, security patches, and updates, and your machine should
be ready to go. Before you partition your hard drive during the
Windows install process, consider creating separate partitions for
your applications and data. Doing this makes backing up your data
much faster, and prevents you from backing up data that doesn’t
change every week—like the contents of your C:/Windows folder.
You shouldn’t need more than 40GB for your Windows drive, so
you’ll still have tons of space for your media fi les. You should also
give your machine a descriptive name, which will be easy to type,
when the Windows installer prompts you.
Now that your box is set up, you’ll want to create folders for your
separate media types off the root of your media partition. We rec-
ommend creating a Media folder on that partition, then creating
subfolders for videos, music, and photos. You might even want
to set up folders dedicated to downloaded fi les, ISO backups
of your application CDs, or anything else. Now, start collating all
those loose media fi les from your various PCs. You can copy them
through the network, but if you’re dealing with a few hundred gigs of
data, it’s much faster to use that external drive and run around your
house, collecting all the media on it and then transferring it to its
new home on your server.
In the past, we’ve recommend-
ed everything from Windows
2000 to Linux for a streaming
server’s OS, but over the years,
we’ve found that the best solu-
tion is actually very simple:
Windows XP Professional. The
rise of inexpensive video and
audio streaming boxes opens
lots of doors for the owner
of a media server; however,
most of the software requires
Universal Plug and Play sup-
port, which only works on
Windows XP (and it’s many
variants). You can even use
Windows Media Center 2005,
which delivers a few extra bonus features, with a catch.
The catch is, you can’t offi cially buy a retail box of Media
Center 2005; instead you have to buy the special OEM version.
You can get Media Center 2005 at online stores such as Newegg
( http://www.newegg.com ) for about $130. Add a supported TV tuner and
a remote, and Media Center lets you use your PC (as well as any
connected streaming box or Xbox 360) as a PVR and digital-media
hub, from which you can access movies, music, photos, and more.
are accidentally deleted, by you or by malicious software, the
RAID backup will be wiped out at the same time.
For the most part, a single drive, which can keep up with
typical media-streaming situations, will be marginally less
noisy, and generate less heat. With the cash you save, you
can buy an external backup drive. Your backup drive should
include software that automatically copies the contents of
your disk according to your set schedule. Unless you add
tons of media every day, we recommend you run backups
weekly. Any backup drive will do, as long as it can back up
your primary drive in its entirety.
Soundcard
Case, etc.
If your server requires a sound-
card, you can’t do better than
Creative Labs’ X-Fi XtremeMusic.
A good small formfactor case, like this
Shuttle SB86i, will fit right into your
living room—just make sure it’s big
enough to hold a couple of hard drives.
There are fancier alternatives
these days, but for ultimate com-
patibility and easy maintenance,
we recommend Windows XP for
your media server.
Continued from previous page