Keep in mind that your standard mechanical hard drives aren't really ment for situations where they're constantly exposed to jarring while the drive is running. Ideally a car centric system would use an SSD instead of a mechanical disk.
Anyways, given all the issues regarding portability, power, and motion, have you considered a notebook?
First, I'm not hard mounting the HDD to the car. It'll likely be in a plastic container and it should be easy enough to add some foam padding for shock absorption if necessary. Besides, it's not like I'm gonna go off-roading. :rolleyes:
Second, it's an external 2.5" HDD so by design, it's already going to be more resistant to shock than your typical 3.5" desktop HDD. Besides, for the cost of two 1TB SSDs, I can afford to replace the HDD seven (7) times at current pricing. In a couple of years, the same capacity HDD will likely be available for $60 or so barring any unusual circumstances like the flooding in Thailand.
I've used a notebook (with external 2.5" HDD) as media server when I travel but it kinda sucks using it as a server in a car. Size, heat, power consumption and knocking off the USB cable is a concern. The notebook will overheat if left inside its bag while running and I don't really fancy keeping it on my lap for the entirety of the drive. The Intel NUC's form factor would have been a nice fit as headless server but powering it is a concern. I'd need to find a 12V to 19V cigarette lighter adapter that can deliver clean power or use an inverter that would have been bigger and heavier than the combined Pi+HDD setup. Regardless, the same jarring issues would still apply. Only difference with the NUC is I'd have the 2.5" HDD inside the NUC chassis already.
First, I'm not hard mounting the HDD to the car. It'll likely be in a plastic container and it should be easy enough to add some foam padding for shock absorption if necessary. Besides, it's not like I'm gonna go off-roading. :rolleyes:
Second, it's an external 2.5" HDD so by design, it's already going to be more resistant to shock than your typical 3.5" desktop HDD. Besides, for the cost of two 1TB SSDs, I can afford to replace the HDD seven (7) times at current pricing. In a couple of years, the same capacity HDD will likely be available for $60 or so barring any unusual circumstances like the flooding in Thailand.
I've used a notebook (with external 2.5" HDD) as media server when I travel but it kinda sucks using it as a server in a car. Size, heat, power consumption and knocking off the USB cable is a concern. The notebook will overheat if left inside its bag while running and I don't really fancy keeping it on my lap for the entirety of the drive. The Intel NUC's form factor would have been a nice fit as headless server but powering it is a concern. I'd need to find a 12V to 19V cigarette lighter adapter that can deliver clean power or use an inverter that would have been bigger and heavier than the combined Pi+HDD setup. Regardless, the same jarring issues would still apply. Only difference with the NUC is I'd have the 2.5" HDD inside the NUC chassis already.
The intel NUC actually will run on anything between 12V and 19V. In theory, you won't need to adjust the voltage coming out of the cigarette lighter. However, in practice, you probably want a system to prevent draining your car battery to a low threshold. There are quite a few solutions on the market for this, but it's going to add a little bit of cost to the system. I've seen a buck-boost dc-dc board for around $70 that will keep a constant output voltage for a car system, and it will also act as a UPS to signal power loss so the machine can shut down.
The new i5 with 2.5" HDD support looks like an ideal solution:
Throw an affordable SSD in there for your OS and media... or optional USB media if you need more storage than you can afford to buy SSD. This also comes with wireless, so there is no need for an external wireless adapter.
The nice thing about the i5 in this system, is that it should very easily handle realtime 1080p video conversion, even to multiple clients.
The intel NUC actually will run on anything between 12V and 19V. In theory, you won't need to adjust the voltage coming out of the cigarette lighter. However, in practice, you probably want a system to prevent draining your car battery to a low threshold. There are quite a few solutions on the market for this, but it's going to add a little bit of cost to the system. I've seen a buck-boost dc-dc board for around $70 that will keep a constant output voltage for a car system, and it will also act as a UPS to signal power loss so the machine can shut down.
The new i5 with 2.5" HDD support looks like an ideal solution:
Throw an affordable SSD in there for your OS and media... or optional USB media if you need more storage than you can afford to buy SSD. This also comes with wireless, so there is no need for an external wireless adapter.
The nice thing about the i5 in this system, is that it should very easily handle realtime 1080p video conversion, even to multiple clients.
Good to know about the voltage range.
I had actually been looking at this before deciding on the Pi:
MSRP is $90 less than the i5 version with really 600MHz higher clock speed being the only difference as far as I can tell. I reckon 2.10GHz should be quite sufficient for my usage. I plan on storing pre-encoded movies on this thing, anyway. I'd use up storage way too quickly if I store 1:1 Blu-ray rips. I have a spare 128GB M.2 2242 that can be used for OS and programs leaving the 2.5" slot available for HDD. Also have some 4GB SO-DIMMs from when I upgraded my laptops to 16GB.
Maybe when 1TB SSDs drop down to ~$250, I'd consider using them for portable media storage. However, with current pricing I think I'll stick to using 1TB class SSDs for situations where I need both speed and capacity (and yes, I do have two 1TB 840 EVO and a 960GB M500 installed on single-drive configuration laptops).
I might end up building both Pi and NUC. The Pi 2 build is only going to cost me $55 total, anyway.
Awesome idea! I was just thinking about something like this earlier and decided to see if someone had already done it. I was thinking that if I could set up a server with some content in the car then I could either buy a couple of cheap android tablets (with bluetooth headphones) or have the ability for people in the car to join the hot spot and stream plex. I guess the server would have to be beefy enough to be able to stream to 2-3 devices. The Raspberry Pi sounds like a cheap solution. Have you worked any more on this project?
Awesome idea! I was just thinking about something like this earlier and decided to see if someone had already done it. I was thinking that if I could set up a server with some content in the car then I could either buy a couple of cheap android tablets (with bluetooth headphones) or have the ability for people in the car to join the hot spot and stream plex. I guess the server would have to be beefy enough to be able to stream to 2-3 devices. The Raspberry Pi sounds like a cheap solution. Have you worked any more on this project?
Alas, haven't started yet as I got distracted by other stuff. I think I'm pretty much done with the planning stage, though. :P
My final parts list has been changed to the following:
Raspberry Pi 2, $35
ModMyPi RPi2 Modular Case, $10
UPS PIco HAT, $25
PIco LiPO 3000 mAh, $20
Edimax EW-7811UN, on-hand
Samsung 32GB Class 6, on-hand
WD My Passport Ultra 2TB, on-hand
Anker 2nd Gen Astro E5 16000 mAh, on-hand
(optional) TP-Link WR-702N Wi-Fi Router, on-hand
Total out-of-pocket cost: $90 (plus applicable taxes & shipping)
I don't expect to see any issues with streaming to 2-4 clients. However, keep in mind that I'm pre-encoding (using Handbrake/Intel QuickSync on an Intel Pentium G3220) all content that will be served by the RPi2 to 720p 3Mbps H.264 High Profile L4.0/128Kbps Stereo AAC-LC in MP4 container. I've already tested encoded videos using these settings and they were all Direct Play by the clients we expect to use (iPad 3, iPad 4, iPad Air, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Nexus 7 2013).
anyone end up pulling this off? I recently got a pi 3 which would be even better and the head unti I have in my car has a 3.5mm AV in right on the front of it which I think the Pi can use.
@antforce1 said:
anyone end up pulling this off? I recently got a pi 3 which would be even better and the head unti I have in my car has a 3.5mm AV in right on the front of it which I think the Pi can use.
I got pretty busy so I never was able to go through with this particular project. That said, WD just released the My Passport Wireless Pro with Plex Media Server support so ended up just buying that. Ready-made solution and factoring in overall cost (including the cost of stuff I already had on hand), the My Passport Wireless Pro actually ends up being cheaper and requires much less effort.
