What is the best external storage option for a PC running XBMC?

May 22, 2010 8:17 PM

What is the best external storage option for a PC running XBMC?

I recently set up an Aspire Revo 3610 with XBMC and absolutely LOVE it. It is connected to my TV via HDMI and I use it to watch movies and TV shows which are ripped to the HDD. Aside from using it for XBMC, the only other use that computer sees is Hulu and Netflix viewing. However, due to the ripped movies/TV shows, I'm running into hard drive space issues.

I'm looking to expand the hard drive with an external option to between 1-2 TB. However, I'm not sure which method of storage will be the best way to do this.

The only option I am really familiar with is plugging in an external hard drive via USB and having a redundant drive backing it up. This is one type I've been looking at.

I have found this product that seems promising but have zero experience with home servers. Can I plug that in, direct XBMC to that drive and be set with up to 2 TB of storage (including 2TB in backup)?

In searching AskMeFi, I came up with this question. I am aware of RAID but have zero experience. What are the pros/cons of such a setup? Is this feasible for what I'm looking to do?

Any experiences or suggestions would be great!

posted by zcow to computers & internet (3 answers total)

Windows Home Server is (supposed to be) a kick-ass OS. Backs up all your PCs, storage is (supposed to be) easily expandable, etc. I have no experience with it, hence the qualifications. I would seriously consider it.
posted by gjc at 9:01 PM on May 22, 2010

If you're just looking to expand the space on the Aspire, you could just get an external drive that supports eSATA. Alternatively, if you want something that is more flexible (to add space in the future) you could get one of these and a few internal drives.
posted by sciencemandan at 10:14 PM on May 22, 2010

I'm thinking of doing something similar, but with a DS210j. Like the Acer Home Server you linked to, it's just a computer that sits on your network and lets you can access your files from your other computers (XBMC supports it).
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 9:37 AM on May 23, 2010