Video file server for Samsung Smart TV?

[Galane]

I'm wanting to put together something inexpensive and simple to do nothing but serve video files to my Samsung Smart TV. It should simply show up in the TV's sources menu and do nothing to the files.

This is possible to do by sharing some folders from Windows and the TV can play them over the LAN, exactly like it plays them from a directly connected USB drive. But I don't want to have a full Windows system sitting around doing nothing but pretending to be a network drive for the TV.

The goal is to be able to copy videos to the thing from my desktop, which is nowhere near the livingroom where the TV is, to the video server box, then be able to use the TV's own file browser to select and play the videos.

No logins, no user names, passwords, or space quotas, not accessible from anywhere outside the 192.168.0.xxx LAN. It has to be dead easy to use because some people who use the TV know just enough to operate it to use the sources menu to get to the USB drive. More complexity and they'll just not bother. I want to make my life a bit easier by no longer having to sneakernet videos to the TV on flash drives.

 

[Rand__]

How about running a RasPi or small Synology Unit to serve videos from? Could also double as backup server which is always good to have...

 

[Galane]

I'd like to find a small SBC with a SATA controller that's directly on the bus instead of going through USB.

I have a QNAP TS-209 with a pair of 2TB drives but that's old, so old it doesn't support higher than SMB1.0. I took it apart to install a new CR2032 battery (bit of planned obsolescence there, it has to be taken *completely* apart to get at that) and installed the optional SMB1.0 support in Windows 10 - and still can't access it properly to configure it. Definitely a "retro" box for people hanging onto Win7, or XP, or for Linux. Or I might remove the old QNAP electronics and put something current inside.

I got an older Newertech Guardian MAXimus RAID1 box with FW400, FW800, eSATA and USB 2.0 ports. No configuration, just install two identical 3.5" SATA drives up to 6TB, plug in, turn on, wait for the ready light. It's a supposedly foolproof mirrored storage box, choose the port you want to use and it acts like any normal external drive. A bit over $30 with shipping on eBay. Pondering if I want to drop $200 on a pair of 6TB drives to only have use of 6TB.

I've found an Addonics Ethernet to SATA NAS adapter with two eSATAp ports. Plug in drives, plug in LAN, you have a NAS. Costs around $100. Dunno if it can be configured as a simple, openly accessible storage.

I've looked into newer thin clients that have a PCIe slot and/or two SATA ports in addition to the interface for the boot OS. Those are bringing pretty high prices, even higher for ones with USB 3.0. Seems a lot of people have similar ideas to repurpose them as lightweight servers, NAS, etc. A couple of years ago people we practically throwing them away.

Next up? SFF and USFF desktops. SFF or Small Form Factor is essentially the same as a normal desktop but usually with only one PCIe slot (or PCI for older models). USFF or Ultra SFF straddles the line between thin client and desktop. Their hardware is still pretty much the same as used in desktops but may omit any expansion slots and may have a soldered CPU. Some USFF models are smaller than larger thin clients.