Moving Beyond the QNAP Concepts

It's been some time since I drooled over a friend's set up of Plex on a QNAP NAS, and wondered how I could efficiently manifest something similar on a RasPi. Further analysis of the circumstances have reshaped my thoughts on that matter. But as for any of the technical challenges I seem to take on around our home, the journey is rarely straight forward, and the direction constantly changes. And for this project, so has the prospect of a budget.

Previously I had identified that running the Plex services of the RasPi was not an option. And the reason I wanted to use Plex was that it would work natively with our lounge room TV. Further research and trials has since blown that concept out of the water - LG does not have the smart TV apps for our model that work with Plex. This does not mean our ideas for using Plex are dead - far from it. Allow me to elaborate.

The media centre solution that I need to apply now needs to facilitate the following:

• Access from our lounge room TV (LG) - Wirelessly connected to our internal network
• Access from our bedroom TV with smart Blu-ray (Samsung) - Wirelessly connected to our internal network
• Limited access from our son's playroom TV (Medion) - not currently connected to our networks
• RasPi does not run Plex, but can run XBMC

I have canabalised an old 2nd hand machine, and setup an Ubuntu server with Plex, CouchPotato, Sickbeard and other apps. It's in our DMZ. This means that the Samsung smart Blu-ray can access it, but our LG TV cannot as its network features do not seem to allow it to discover appliances outside its subnet.

So, the Plex server in the DMZ, works. Samsung has a Plex app. Works on the bedroom blu-ray. Lounge TV can't use Plex, and can't connect to the DMZ. But the Plex server is capturing content, and I don't want to put it in the internal subnet. The Plex server has a fair but of content on it already, but I want to be able to control the access our son has to that via his playroom TV. And at the same time, whilst I'd like to be as power conservative as possible, our current situation dictates that conserving money is the more important criteria.

Limiting the connectivity of the playroom TV would also be advisable - helps with regulating the young boy's Internet access. Plus, it would be beneficial family suitable content could also be made available on our portable DVD-player when we travel. It accepts USB connections, as does the playroom TV. So, my thoughts are that the easiest solution there, is a portable USB drive. I can refresh the content every once in a while to provide variety, but otherwise it is low-cost, simplistic, restricts access, and is portable.

That means that there is only the lounge room TV to satisfy. My current thinking is that my RasPi with XBMC, could serve movies to it directly through HDMI, and the content for the RasPi could be migrated from the Plex server either by some kind of scheduled task, or by establishing some code that will detect when new movies and TV shows have arrived on the Plex server, and will cause an update to the RasPi.

Raspberry Pi - The Organic Way to a Green Network?

Epilogue to the Previous Post

There was life in my RPi, but not as I planned it Jim!

As a headless box, remotely operated through an SSH session, the Pi worked well - including its raspi-config tool.

But the wireless USB keyboard and mouse not working was my fault.  I didn't check the specs of the peripherals first.  If I had, I would have realised that they were not compatible with Linux.  Have since ordered a new set from Element14.

Going Green

Whilst waiting to get these goodies, I've been doing some thinking and planning.  My testing of the RPi and its abilities against other platforms is still in the planning process..  But in parallel I've had some other thoughts.

Looking at the power bills that we are getting out in a rural region - horrendous.  I'm certain that part of that excessive power usage is my small network of machines at home.  Yet I want to do more from home, with more machines.  That can only mean one thing - a bigger power bill.  Or does it?

Perhaps the RPi can come to the fore here.  Part of the problem is the machinery that I leave running most of the time.  My desktops and laptop are not so much of an issue if I shut them down overnight when not in use.  But looking at my network as it is now, and how I would like it to be, there are several spots in which I might wish to substitute in a RPi.  The list of appliances that I would like to have running 24/7 includes:

• Firewall/Proxy Server
• Dedicated Web Server
• Dedicated Web App Server
• Dedicated DB Server
• Dedicated IDS/Honeypot
• Dedicated Print Server

In considering the suitability of the RPi for any of these roles, I need to be able to compare apples to apples.  To do this from the power supply perspective, we need a way of comparing our traditional desktop power supply of 300 to 400 Watts, to the 1 Amp supply running the RPi.  To do this, we are going to make use of the equation;

          Watts = Amps x Volts

So, how many Watts does the RPi draw?  This is always going to be dependent upon the power pack used.  The power pack that I'm using currently has an output of 1 Amp at 5 VA.  But that is what it outputs to the RPi, not what it draws from the power socket.  What it draws from our power socket is 240 Volts at 150 milli-Amps.  Throwing these values into our equation;

          Watts = 0.15 x 240

          Watts = 36

But of course, I could compare this to a desktop or server with a 1KW PSU, and rave on about how much of a saving it should make, but it is not the size of the PSU that is important, but the amount of hardware that it supports.  From various sites you can utilise an online power calculator.  I went to eXtreme Outer Vision's calculator page.  Here I plugged in the values that were as close as possible to what my existing firewall machine has.  It is running a 300Watt PSU.  I calculated the power draw for it based upon a 90% CPU utilisation and it calculated that it would require a minimum of 198 Watts, but recommended 248 Watts to be sure.  For my comparison, I am going to take the conservative value of 198 Watts.  This is nearly 6 times more than the power draw of the RPi.  I think that there could be some real savings achieved.

To see how these potential solutions turn out, I have started a new page at: Raspberry Pi and Green Home Network