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Back in January, we started working on a Home Media Center/Home Server configuration. I started moving some of the equipment that was normally found in my home office to the living room.

We started to build this monster machine that I thought would handle everything. Theoretically, it would and could but when it came to practice, it just didn’t work out. Here’s the YouTube of where we started with this thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqcJ45XRNDM

I decided to turn that computer to our media editing machine and it worked fine, but not great. From my perspective, Vista was just not ready to handle the larger demands we were placing on this machine. So, we decided to throw OS X on it. We were quite surprised at how well it worked. So much so that we have decided to move to the Mac platform throughout our household. (As some of you have been reading)

Moving forward, we decided to look into the feasibility of using the Mac platform as our main Media Center that is connected to the living room television. We’re gonna re-configure our big black quad core and set it up and test it. If this works out for us, we’re planning on getting a full Mac Pro and do the same.

Here is the configuration:

Motherboard: Asus Maximus Formula
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
Memory: 8 Gigabytes of Corsair DDR2 (4 x 2GB sticks)
Boot Drive: 500 Gigabyte Seagate
Data Drive: 1 Terabyte Seagate
Video: xFx nVidia GeForce 8800GT w/ 512 MB DDR3
NAS: ReadyNAS NV+ w/ 4 x 750 Gigabyte Seagate drives

Operating System: Leopard OS X 10.5.2 via Leo4All (See NOTE)

“Server” Capabilities:

We will configure the DATA drive to do sharing via bonjour and smb to share our data throughout the house computers.

The ReadyNAS NV+ will be set up as our Time Machine backup drive over the network.

We are still looking into several DLNA/uPNP solutions.

This machine will have iTunes library sharing enabled as well.

Software to be installed and configuration:

VMWare Fusion

We will use VMWare Fusion to run various linux and windows VM’s for our needs. The main Windows VM will be running Vista Ultimate and will provide extender capabilities to our Xbox 360’s.

Toast 9 Titanium

We will use Toast with it’s Tivo functionality to pull and archive our favorite TV shows. We will also set up automatic conversion for use on our iphones.

That’s about it. We’re gonna try to do a full video of this when we do it and will add it to the technochubby stuff on YouTube.

Wish us Luck!

NOTE: Yes, we own a full copy of Leopard. We’d also like to point out that this machine is purely for testing. If this meets our wants/needs we will be purchasing a full Mac Pro. (Just like I just finished purchasing a MacBook Pro once I decided the platform was for me)

Also we do own licenses for all the commercial software that we install on our computers.

It’s a sad sad day for me. I just got the news, Sci-Fi channel is cancelling Stargate SG-1. [ Click Here to See the news ] What are they thinking?!?!?!

It’s the longest running Sci-fi show to date. We need more Sci-Fi not less!!!

I remember initially, that I did not want to watch the show. I was one of those that felt it took away from Read the complete Post.