Help me set up my network + media

[AstroTurf]

I currently have a couple of computers and devices spread through the house.
I don't spend all that much cash on them as I don't play latest and greatest games. They are all mostly used for movies/series/work/web with a game played once in a blue moon.

I'll leave machine details for last.

Basically I want to make most of the machines wired but also have WIFI available.
Due to our location ADSL is not possible and the only network coverage I can get is from Vodacom so I have a ****ty little 3GB cap.
All machines and devices are set to only download updates manually due to this, I usually lug them to an internet connection every 4 to 6 weeks and do updates.

My 3g Router has a single LAN plug and WIFI.
I have this wired to (usually) the main machine but from time to time it gets moved to the bedroom when I want to surf on a pc instead of my phone.

Short term: I plan to get a little 8 port 100/1000Mb/s Switch and wire all 3 pc's to the network along with the router.
Cables are sorted, just need to actually go and buy a switch (within the next couple of days).

Medium term: I want to get a Wifi AP or two and then either use one of these machines or one of the older machines in my cupboard (p166 and p2) as a proxy with smoothwall then disable the 3g router's wifi and run the internet through the proxy.

Anyway, my questions are as follows:

Any suggestions on doing offline updates? I was thinking of sticking a virtual machine onto a portable hard drive and using something like WSUS to do all the updates.

I am thinking of moving the G5 over to Ubuntu, OSX 10.5.8 is really sucky. Any how-to's you would suggest? I use Ubuntu on my work machine and the only down side for me thus far has been the need for an internet connection to do any installs.

I have an ATI Sapphire HD 5670 1GB that is only about a year old. Should I leave my Lounge machine as is (Nvidia 9800GT 1GB, about 3/5 years old) or swap the two?

Whichever one is left will upgrade one of the other two machines (depending on what OSX allows or if I put a real OS on that machine).

I want to put plex server on one of the machines and have the rest stream from it.
I think I have 2 options here? I can either put the Raspberry on the main tv and stream to that or I can leave my main machine on the tv, carry on using XBMC on the main tv and then use it to stream as well. I would prefer the second option for the once in a blue moon that I actually play a game or use the machine for something else.

Anyway, to those that got this far, thanks for reading and your assistance will be greatly appreciated

Bedroom:
Apple G5
OS X (10.5.8).
2GB RAM
Some Dual core CPU (Can't remember).
Nvidia Geforce 6200 or something GPU with 512 Meg ram.
23" HD LCD
160GB HDD

To old for me to want to spend any cash on it and currently used to watch some older sd stuff from time to time as well as surfing the web, writing, reading pdf's and so on.

Lounge:
Windows 7 Pro X64
3.2Ghz Dual core Intel
4GB RAM
Nvidia 9800GT 1GB
42" HD LCD
Around 7.5TB hard drives in total (Thinking of upgrading this to a full 10TB).

Used for XBMC/VLC and such (series, movies, etc) with a game once in a while.

Play room/Spare room (wife's hobbies, daughter plays in here and so on).
Windows 7 Pro
2.8GHz dual core Intel
4GB RAM
Nvidia 8400GT 512meg
21" CRT
Around 750GB Hdd total.

Mostly for my daughter to watch series, once in a blue moon used to surf the web or by me to play a game.

Portable:
Notebook (2GB RAM, windows xp, old thing).
Netbook (4GB RAM, windows 8, some quad core cpu that can't play full hd properly).
Several Cellphones and other devices.

Other:
Raspberry PI.

 

[Rickster]

I dont think they make 1 Terabit/s switches.

 

[AstroTurf]

I dont think they make 1 Terabit/s switches.

LOL, not yet...

 

[adam_g]

U could get a local transfer rate of upto about 4gbps thats the most ive seen.

 

[AstroTurf]

U could get a local transfer rate of upto about 4gbps thats the most ive seen.

Sorry I was in a hurry and had been called away about 5 times while writing that/Did not read what I had written.

Ignoring my obvious mistakes, any advice/suggestions on the actual thread?

 

[AstroTurf]

So all I get on a "tech" forum is a single correction...

 

[CataclysmZA]

1) Your network plan is fine. You'll have two ethernet ports left over once you add in the access points. Do consider a cheap gigabit switch and 802.11n access points, it makes transferring files over the network less of a headache especially if you're streaming media.

1.1) Long-term, upgrade your desktops to gigabit ethernet cards if they don't have one already. Upgrade your laptop and netbook to use 300Mbps 802.11n-compatible WiFi cards/USB dongles if possible for better signal and throughput.

2) Windows updates can be cached in PFSense, you only need one machine to download them and then the rest will leech them off the local network.

3) Put the 9800GT inside the G5 if the power supply supports it. The Kexts for it should be in OS X Leopard already, probably plug-and-play in that case.

4) Flip a coin, either streaming option from Plex or XBMC is a good idea.

 

[AstroTurf]

thanks Nag

 

[MartyMarts]

I currently have a couple of computers and devices spread through the house.

I'm in a similar boat to you. I pretty much gave up though because I came up with so many different solutions (to improve something that isn't necessarily broken or needs improving) in my head without ever really following them through :/

I don't like my setup though but I can't tell you why (because I don't know why).

I want to put plex server on one of the machines and have the rest stream from it.

This I definitely can recommend. One plex server and everything else streams from it.

 

[AstroTurf]

This I definitely can recommend. One plex server and everything else streams from it.

Yea that is pretty much the idea. Currently it's a mess on all but the main pc (This is actually now practically perfect in every way thanks to filebot on old files and all new files being renamed and sorted as they are downloaded).

All the other machines are chaos, duplicates spread everywhere and unneeded files all over the show.
Copying files to removable drives/over the network gets tiresome.

 

[MartyMarts]

Yea that is pretty much the idea. Currently it's a mess on all but the main pc (This is actually now practically perfect in every way thanks to filebot on old files and all new files being renamed and sorted as they are downloaded).

Half the battle is sorting out your media imo. Well, that was my biggest hurdle initially.

All the other machines are chaos, duplicates spread everywhere and unneeded files all over the show.
Copying files to removable drives/over the network gets tiresome.

HaHa pretty much the reason I went off the rails one evening and just formated 3 of the machines and made them similar i.e. Windows 8.1 + dropbox on all of them. No more copying crap all over the place and duplicates everywhere.

 

[AstroTurf]

Half the battle is sorting out your media imo. Well, that was my biggest hurdle initially.



HaHa pretty much the reason I went off the rails one evening and just formated 3 of the machines and made them similar i.e. Windows 8.1 + dropbox on all of them. No more copying crap all over the place and duplicates everywhere.

Yea, pretty much why I am losing it at the moment.
I'll be happy with just having a proper network set up. The main culprit for the duplicates is series/movies.

I don't particularly care about where photos/mp3's/docs are stored but I will set up a small file share on one of the machines in case someone wants to move these/copy these elsewhere.

I see plex client does not work on OS X 10.5.8 so that will also have to go. I'll just use another hard drive (plenty of those around) for an ubuntu install and leave the current unplugged drive in the machine in case I ever feel the need to revert.

 

[MartyMarts]

The dropbox bit was more for the personal documents. The missus asking me if I knew where she had saved some random document one day prompted this. I thought about the file share option but went with dropbox for some reason. I lost a chunk of my series collection about two years ago - I went and ran some file naming app on my entire series folder so plex could pick them up correctly. Bad mistake on my part but I still blame the booze. I don't download much now but when I do I ensure it's named correctly and moved to the right place.

The plan is to get all our "old" photos onto dropbox or some cloud service eventually but for now they're just chilling on one of the machines with an outdated backup on an external hard drive.

Music/mp3s - since we've started using Simfy, my music/mp3 collection has become redundant. Not too worried about it. This after spending a couple of evenings sorting it all out!

EDIT: Oh wrt plex - once you've set it up, depending on how much media you point it at you might want to NOT let it populate/update it's metadata using your 3G connection.

 

[AstroTurf]

The dropbox bit was more for the personal documents. The missus asking me if I knew where she had saved some random document one day prompted this. I thought about the file share option but went with dropbox for some reason. I lost a chunk of my series collection about two years ago - I went and ran some file naming app on my entire series folder so plex could pick them up correctly. Bad mistake on my part but I still blame the booze. I don't download much now but when I do I ensure it's named correctly and moved to the right place.

The plan is to get all our "old" photos onto dropbox or some cloud service eventually but for now they're just chilling on one of the machines with an outdated backup on an external hard drive.

Music/mp3s - since we've started using Simfy, my music/mp3 collection has become redundant. Not too worried about it. This after spending a couple of evenings sorting it all out!

EDIT: Oh wrt plex - once you've set it up, depending on how much media you point it at you might want to NOT let it populate/update it's metadata using your 3G connection.

Yea, I'll do it at a different location.

Currently have the whole thing updated for XBMC though, wonder if I could use that db.

 

[MartyMarts]

Yea, I'll do it at a different location.

Currently have the whole thing updated for XBMC though, wonder if I could use that db.

Honestly have no idea. I suppose there's nothing stopping you from continuing with XBMC - if it works for you then why not. Surprised there aren't more comments/suggestions here. There are quite a few forumites here who take this stuff "seriously" ...and by seriously I mean they know what they're doing

C'mon guys... give AstroTurf some suggestions.

 

[AstroTurf]

On the update thing I am going to give WSUS offline update a go.

http://download.wsusoffline.net/

 

[ponder]

Any suggestions on doing offline updates? I was thinking of sticking a virtual machine onto a portable hard drive and using something like WSUS to do all the updates.

I am thinking of moving the G5 over to Ubuntu, OSX 10.5.8 is really sucky. Any how-to's you would suggest? I use Ubuntu on my work machine and the only down side for me thus far has been the need for an internet connection to do any installs.

http://www.nitrobit.com/updateserver.html

 

[AstroTurf]

http://www.nitrobit.com/updateserver.html

I am going to look at this as a vb install but I have already started downloading updates using WSUS offline update so that will be tried first.

 

[MartyMarts]

The offline updates will come in very handy in your scenario. Not something I've considered. Well, not yet.

 

[DawieS]

You could also save some bandwidth (and time) building a new Ubuntu installation, or updating other PC's, by having your own Local Repository, where you keep all your favourite software with updates.

For some reason I got stuck with Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid). I have my Local Repository in my home/Public folder. Please see the attached user manual (Local Repository.doc) for instructions on how to set it up. Use find/replace to adjust to your needs, and copy/paste into a terminal.

Credit to forum member luvr at ubuntuforums.org.