Mornin' all. I got a Now TV box (bit like the Roku, a slimmed down, not as feature rich I guess, version) a while ago which is using the movies from a MacMini but I am running out of space on it (and its external HDD). I was thinking of getting a NAS with two large HDD in to attach to the mini. But then thought... Is there a either A) A NAS that can act like the mini and just have the Now TV box connect directly (or is this impossible due to some other reason?) or B) a better way to do this that anyone knows? Also, I have three external hard drives. One is a seagate free agent desktop 500GB (as pictured) and the other two are 2TB WD Elements (also pictured) Is it possible to get the harddrives out of these enclosures to use in a NAS? If anyone has any experience with this sort of thing? Cheers in advance for any help. Pete SG FreeAgent WD Elements
I'd look at building an Unraid server which is perfect for this type of application. You can use older parts if you have them, or build a new low power/low cost unit. A cheap HP microserver will also work. All will allow reuse of your old hard drives into one shared drive. I have one running smoothly for about year now. HTH.
agree with the above but one snag may be that many external drives have soldered connections so be very careful if you open them up as it may not be possible to use them internally. It will obviously void any warranty in case that is a problem
The elements drives I think are SATA (I am sure I recall seeing others dismantle elements drives), but I am not sure about the Seagate. I think it's a one way process with the Seagate though, i.e. smashing the casing.
Pretty sure you can put Plex on the NowTV box, so get a NAS that supports Plex or build your own. No idea how well it'll run but you could always test the NowTV box with Plex using an existing computer to see how it'll work if you build your own server. Might be worth looking into.
I have plex on it at the moment. I currently use a MacMini with the HDD's connected to that. Which is what the Now TV box see's and gets the movies/series from. it works fine, I just thought maybe a NAS would be a simpler/cleaner solution. It's 3 separate externals with a lot of cables all over the place at the moment. Building a whole media server isn't really an option as I can't really afford getting bits together to do it. =[
I'd imagine your Mac will more than likely have more performance to do any transcoding required. Even if it is messier. I assume switching out the hard disk in the Mac is out, or at it's largest capacity already? Obligatory "delete all your videos, you don't need that many" comment.
You can switch the Mac Mini HDD, but they are 2.5" drives and therefore limited in capacity (assuming it is a 2011/2012 Mac Mini)
