Advice for a media "Server"

[hagg3rty]

I am looking to to a mass amount of owned music and video onto a external harddrive connected to my laptop and then sharing it over the network in my house to all the computers. I also have surroundsound in the room my laptop and harddrive will be in. Would it be a good idea to buy an external sound card(if so whichone) for my laptop so it will sound better over the speakers or will the audio out on the laptop due.

Also if anyone has any better idea on how to store music and video over a home network pleasre let me know I will probably be using itunes to play the music

 

[InlineFour]

you should build a cheap dedicated media server so you'll always have your media available without having your laptop on.

 

[pkme2]

http://www.realnetworks.com/products/media_delivery.html
Getting started.

 

[hagg3rty]

up

 

[Dman877]

There are networks hardrives that would do what you want. Basically they're just an external drive that you plug into the network with cat5 and everyone can access it.

 

[j00fek]

iv been looking to get rid of my server and go down this route for a media server Text

 

[hagg3rty]

would it be the same thing if i just shared the drive over the network via the usb cable? or would it be faster via cat5

 

[hagg3rty]

good deal?

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?s...tegory=Comp&Gad=0&dcaid=15891#creviews

 

[pkme2]

Yes.

 

[InlineFour]

Originally posted by: hagg3rty
would it be the same thing if i just shared the drive over the network via the usb cable? or would it be faster via cat5

theoretically, it should be faster by cat5. using usb means you'd have to connect the external hard drive to your laptop, then your laptop connects to a switch. a network attached storage (NAS) connects directly to the switch, avoiding a 'middle man'.