A multimedia center can be very practical, and can even make us forget services such as Spotify or Netflix. We tell you how you can ride one. Entertainment has become a very important part of our house. For many, a good television in the living room cannot be absent, and for others it is the loudspeakers that should not be scarce. In any case, we spend a lot of time there, and we want to entertain ourselves in the best possible way.
And the so-called 'multimedia centers' can help us achieve just this. A place to store all our songs, series and photos. Make it possible to watch it on television, or make it available to all devices connected to the network. All this is comfortable, and much easier to do than it seems. And in here we are going to help you to know this world.
Choose your multimedia center
The first thing we should do is choose what our multimedia center will be based on. This choice is important because it conditions us completely, it marks us the possibilities that we have.
What are my options?
On the one hand, we can choose the easy way: buy a NAS that already does everything to us only. These NAS are devices that share your data with our entire network in a simple way, in addition to other functions that vary according to the NAS. From prizedreviews.com you can get good idea which is the best NAS for Plex. On the other, we can opt for a more traditional approach, and turn a computer into a multimedia server. In this case, it is simply a Windows or Linux or Windows Server-computer that does the same thing as the NAS. We can buy servers in this style already prepared, such as HP ProLiant, or we can use an old computer that we have at home.
Finally, and as a curiosity, we can do experiments to achieve this. One of the most popular is to get a Raspberry Pi and make it a server. Here we will need to prepare it more, and it can lead to failures and complications, but we can save a lot of money.
Power versus simplicity: which is better?
It is true that the NAS, unless we leave a million, do not usually have very powerful pieces. But most users do not need to use brute power in many cases. To answer this question, we have to ask ourselves another one:
à Do you want a multimedia center that simply sends things to your devices? Do not you think of playing very heavy videos or files? Then do not worry and grab a NAS, it will run smoothly and it will not give you headaches.
à Do you want a multimedia center that plays heavy videos? Do you want to touch? Maybe it's worth it to get a server that gives you more power and freedom. In exchange for not finding that simplicity.
Also keep in mind that, in addition to simplicity, NAS are usually much quieter, contained in size and less gas tones than servers. Of course, this is with the cost of having much less powerful components.
Do not forget the hard drives!
Finally, you have to be careful when making the purchase, because the vast majority of servers and NAS do not include hard drives. That is, you have to buy them separately, inflating the price a little more. Try not to skimp, because you are going to use a lot of space. But keep in mind that they can be added on the fly, so you can plan them for the future.
Our personal recommendation is that, if you are going to buy hard drives, be special for NAS, like the WD Red. They are devices that are turned on 24 hours a day, and the hard disks must resist this use. Although, if you want to contain the price, any hard drive will work.
