Since my last home project item, I have moved house. I moved 4500 miles West, I now reside near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Anyway, A new home requires a new home server, so after months of evaluation, I decided the best server OS for my needs was unRAID. unRAID Server is an embedded Network Attached Storage server Operating System designed to boot from a USB Flash device and specifically designed for digital media storage. More information can be found on the unRAID website.

This server is particularly useful for safely storing all my important files, my family photos and my music collection. All my data is saved centrally on the server, and if any of the hard disk drives were to fail, the unRAID OS ensures that I can replace the hard drive without any data loss.

My new server has 8.5 Terabytes of storage, 8 Gigabytes of RAM and a Intel i3 3.06Ghz processor. This is probably overkill for my needs, but I’m trying my best to future-proof myself. The last thing my bank balance needs is another server build in 2 years time.

If building a server sounds a too technical for you, but you’d love to have the convenience of a home server, Lime-Technology – the creators of unRAID, offer some ready made solutions on their website.

Visit the Lime-Technology website

This was one of the most challenging projects I’ve taken on to date. The goal was to install Ethernet wiring throughout my entire home. The benefits of a wired network over wireless, are significantly faster transfer speeds and much greater service reliability.

I fed roughly 250m of cat5e cable through various parts of my house. Most of the cables were fed inside the walls, but in instances where this wasn’t possible, I fed the cable outdoors and along the exterior of the house. My house now has 20 Ethernet ports throughout 8 rooms, providing gigabit Ethernet speeds to all the network enabled devices in my house.

I decided to create a Home Server computer so I could share my music and video files across the network, without leaving my personal computer on 24/7. The Home Server computer provides a wide range of network services for all the members of my family, while presenting a user-friendly interface.

I chose to install a server that uses a free set of repositories created by a group called Amahi. Amahi provides lots of useful functions such as centralized file sharing, automatic file downloads, shared calendars and scheduled file backups.

Amahi runs on the Linux-based operating system – Fedora. The installations of Amahi and Fedora are very light. This allows the server to operate at low temperatures, putting little stress on the CPU and helping reduce power consumption and energy costs.

I would recommend Amahi or a similar system to even the most novice user.

Visit the Amahi website

Now that I have lightning fast network speeds, I have the infrastructure to allow me to install media streaming devices throughout my home. After looking at the options available on the market today, I chose to install a Sonos Multi-Room Music System.

The Sonos System provides the ability to stream music around the house, but in order to play the music I needed to install speakers in each room. In the majority of rooms this is a simple process of attaching speakers to the Sonos Zone Player box. However, I also decided to install outdoor speakers mounted on exterior walls of the house, and in my Bathroom and Hallway I chose to install ceiling speakers.

In order to use ceiling speakers, I have put a Sonos Zone Player Amplifier in the loft, running cables along the loft floor, through the ceiling and into the speakers. The speakers in these rooms are installed flush with the ceiling to ensure that they have a minimal effect on the aesthetics of the room.

Visit the Sonos website