Follow up to which NAS question

So I had written the following post re what NAS box to get: Netgear ReadNAS Ultra 2 Plus or Synology DS212+? Which NAS?

I had got a bunch of useful information, including one of my buddies, Marco, posting the following on his blog:Response

I'm writing partly in response to Marco's posting, partly to elaborate on why I'm looking to change things around and partly as an update as to my next course of action.

At present I have a Dell Zino HD 400, which is about 2.5 years old.  It works and does the job apart from one massive issue, it keeps on restarting while the machine sits idle if I am running any sort of media player software like Boxee, XBMC or Plex.  I have been searching for a good part of a year for a solution, but it seems to be a design fault with this computer.  There are multiple threads on various forums dealing with the issue.  I have tried several solutions including changing the fan speed (worked, but it was way too noisy), underclocking (didn't work) and changing the hard drive to an SSD and connecting the existing hard drive via esata (didn't work).  What I have generally been doing is that when I don't need the computer, I just put it on standby using my MCE remote control.  This does mean I cannot leave the computer on all the time.

This works fine, but it does mean I cannot access the data on the computer remotely or run downloads while the computer is on standby.  I can turn the computer on using a WOL app on my phone, but then I can't put it on standby, meaning a random reboot!

Therefore I have been looking at a solution to move my media to a separate server.  That way it would be accessible all the time and I could run my downloads off the server, while at the same time allowing my Dell to remain on standby unless I need it.  The reason I looked at NAS boxes was because of their ease of use.  I could build my own NAS box or server, but it was more of a timing and learning curve issue.  I know I would be paying more for a NAS, but my thoughts were while I would be paying more, I would save a lot of time.  This does seem to be the case, especially with Synology, its just a case of putting your drives in, a bit of configuration and off you go.

In response to Marco and eSATA.  Yes, I did consider that, especially as it would be the cheapest option, however it would still not get round the random restart issues my Dell is suffering.  However I did try replacing my internal hard drive (1TB 3.5 inch Seagate) with an SSD (60GB) and putting the 1TB drive into an eSATA docking bay.  I reinstalled Windows 7 onto the SSD, along with Plex.  I am still getting the random restarts, and on top of that video playback in Plex is choppy for HD files (playback on VLC is fine though, so I think its a Plex issue rather than an issue with the eSATA connection).

While looking into all of this I did do some research on the HP ProLiant N40L MicroServer, mainly because in the UK people were able to purchase it for c.US$200 - 240 because of a very generous US$160 cashback offer from HP.  In HK the same server was selling for for closer to US$350 (compare the fact that you could get the Synology DS212+ for about US$430 in Hong Kong).  As the price between the HP server and the NAS were quote close, I thought because of the time to set up the server (and buying additional parts like RAM and OS if I didn't use Linux) it was still more cost effective for me (i.e. someone who did not want to spend a lot of time learning about and setting up the system) to still for the NAS box.

I was all set for the NAS box and then I stumbled upon a site in HK offering the HP server for about US$690 if you bought three units (i.e. roughly US$230 per unit).  This sounded very tempting indeed!  I asked around to see if anyone wanted to join in on this group buy and I thought even if no-one wanted to join, I could just buy three boxes and sell on two of them (probably at a tiny bit of a profit over what I bought them for.

In the end I found two other people willing to join in on this group buy, and one of these guys was able to find a supplier selling three units for about US$640 (i.e. roughly US$214 per unit).

We get delivery of the HP servers sometime this week!

So here begins my journey to create a media server with the HP ProLiant!