Home Theatre/Media Storage Rig Beginner

[tedhiggins]

I’d like to build a high-end home theatre/media storage set up during the summer and was told I may be able to simply expand the extra Mac Mini I have and load it with some software. I will need tons of storage and also may end up using it for some of my personal post-production work. I may be able to get a good price on Dynapower’s NA333TB expansion chassis: http://www.dynapowerusa.com/dyna/ASP/RM_JE_NA333TB.asp
It seems to offer what I’m looking for. Does anyone have any experience using this or have suggestions for alternate routes? Price isn’t necessarily an issue, but I would like to keep things efficient. Thanks in advance!

 

[ssddx]

i am not all that familiar with mac... but if your mac mini is capable handling all your needs and can play your video files without issue then i would agree an external NAS of some sort may be the cheapest and easiest solution. the enclosure you listed may work for your needs if you need that many drives but i would suggest running in a raid setup with a raid card (looks like you can add one to that chassis) with some measure of backup in case of drive failure.

i've done similar while traveling with a laptop and portable hard drive enclosure though not on the scale you speak of. movies play perfectly fine off external drives, though if not compressing movies (which reduces quality) you're going to be using quite a bit of space for even a few movies!