Multiple Pi's and a dedicated server - Questions

[Titanium]

Hello Gang,

I'm looking at having a dedicated pc with all the multi media stuff on it, I am thinking of putting raspberry pi's in my kids rooms and hooking it up to the main server.

I'm not very clued up on all this and was wondering if this is possible?

I am looking at setting up my kids bedrooms (4) so they can have something that will allow them to access the main pc server.

Ideas and suggestions welcome.

thanks in advance

[evilsatan]

It's as easy as you have put it. The server machine can be a NAS, HP N40L Microserver or just an old PC running any normal OS with shared folders or you can run freenas etc

Ideally You will want a gigabit switch connecting the server to each pi via cat5e/cat6 but if using SD content you might get away with wireless. If you don't want to route cables you could get homeplugs, solwise have a deal at the moment if you buy a twin pack of gigabyte plugs you get another one free. My personal favourite are their 500AV PIGGYs though.

Assuming this is to stream media rather than use them as PCs You will want to install RaspBMC on each Pi and then set the sources as the shared folders on the server machine and you should be good to go!