Building my own NAS for DLNA (I)

This year I finally bought a new TV and, after some research I chose a Samsung LE37C650 unit mainly for its networking capabilities and general good reviews out there.

From the beginning I streamed content from my main PC both in SD and HD. I started using the DLNA Server software Samsung offers, but it didn't work too well for me, so I started searching for something else. After some tests, I found Serviio worked very well, so it is my DLNA server since some months. It is great having a interesting and busy forum as well, and it seems to be an ongoing project. This software runs on Java, so it's multi-platform.

I soon realized that it would be a good idea to have a NAS on which to install this software so as to not having to switch on my main PC everytime, even though it is usually on. I bought a Western Digital My Book Live but I finally returned it: its DLNA server (Twonky Server version 5) was no up to date, and there were no free updates. And installing full Java for Serviio wasn't obvious...

Then I found some old equipment that I could evaluate as a DIY Advanced DLNA, and the obvious question was.. "How hard can it be?".

In this article I will evaluate an old Acer Travelmate 380 series powered with and old Pentium M class processor, and a not so old Acer Aspire One Atom based, to investigate their capabilities as an advanced DLNA platform. The unit should have:

• DLNA capabilities based on Serviio,
• NAS storage to home backups,
• Bittorrent and eMule download clients,
• Megaupload/Rapidshare/... downloading features,
• low energy consumption,
• remote access and management,
• low noise, and
  
• low cost.

In next chapter I'll introduce the specs of the tested computersto you. Stay tuned...

Building my own NAS for DLNA (I)
Building my own NAS for DLNA (II): specs
Building my own NAS for DLNA (III): performance
Building my own NAS for DLNA (IV): CPU usage and power consumption
Building my own NAS for DLNA (V): Conclusions


(Server image thanks to David Vignoni )

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