Hey, can someone please help me out here, I want to set up a Torrent Box. Only thing is I can't seem to find something small that I can check out remotely (like uTorrent). I was thinking the raspberry pi but it seems some of the Android pc's are just, if not more powerful than the pi.
Any suggestions would be great.
Mac mini is nowhere near the same market space as Android boxes and Raspberry Pi. Personally I would go for Raspberry Pi, but it depends on your technical knowledge and maintenance expectations. Android will probably be easier if you can find an app you like.
How cheap is cheap? What about a microserver that you park in a dark corner somewhere, no keyboard, mouse or screen, remote into it when needed.
Yeah I thought of that but I don't have a dark corner, something smaller preffered. I which utorrent for Andriod could be remotely controlled.
I thought you can root it and remote control your device.
Just googled it. Try team viewer for samsung devices (not root req) or droid vnc (needs root and is a bit laggy)
Making one from scratch with a raspberry pi seems like a lot of work. Something like one of the single drive NAS from QNAP dlink synology etc would do the trick as they have a Linux os and torrent clients built in. All nicely made & low power.
There is also a couple of cigarette packet size nas adaptors that take a plug in USB drive. (check whirlpool for "torrent appliance")
If you want to get fancy some of them can have different Linux distributions installed then you can do whatever you like.
Or get a cheap old netbook and have a full windows/Linux pc.
Hmm the single bay qnap looks like it's what I need a more, anything else with mobile management access you can think of?
Pretty sure the qnap will be remotely accessible (web interface). I have not personally used one but I've heard good things about them.
If you look around on gumtree they come up occasionally second hand (cheap)
This probably won't appeal to you but I use a Fit-PC2 for this and other duties. It stays on 24/7 and uses 6-10W. there are newer, more powerful versions now such as the Fit-PC3 and Fit-PC Intense. But cheap they are not. I bought it because over the long haul I figured it would pay for itself in electricity savings (it replaced a PC using about 60W) and it has certainly done that.
Thanks for the link, I checked them out, but bang for buck and little information available about chip set etc makes them less desirable compared to a zotac mini pc. I'm pretty keen on the qnap system. I'll be looking into them more closely. Thanks!
I have an iomega cloudstore, but don't use it for torrenting. Info on the box says that you can use it for torrenting and it appears to have remote admin capabilities. They are getting pretty hard to find for sale now though…
Raspberry Pi
I'd suggest a Qnap NAS. A single bay one is fairly cheap, $188 or so, but you have to buy your own NAS rated hdd
http://www.i-store.com.au/product/?CategoryID=11&productid=1…
If you do, you can either use qget and the built in torrent downloader that is part of it. But since the newer firmware updates people have had issues with slow speeds.
My suggestion would be to install transmission:
http://forum.qnap.com/viewforum.php?f=221
As I have switched to it and get fantastic speeds on telstra cable.
Both have web access for externally queuing transfers or remote if you want to connect from a laptop app (using the qnap ddns service to give your connection a static name). I am using a windows ecosystem, and know you can get an windows phone app that will log you into the built in downloader to queue torrents, or you can get Torrent Dashboard that will connect to Transmission on the surface.
There is a bit of configuration involved to get it all running smoothly, port forwarding through your router etc, but its not complicated.
Get a seedbox overseas. $10-15 a month with unlimited transfers. Then you can just download at near your max connection speed (over secure connection)
http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/79385
WD 1T My Book World, came with torrent client, was $79 pickup. Got one a from the previous deal and still working strong.
The downloaded torrent can be played directly through network with a media player or in my case a Samsung TV.
After trying a few Android Mini Sticks, I bought a Neo G4 Android PC recently, and I must say it is the most stable one so far. Doesn't get heated up too much… can do your torrent job very easily…. and for cheaper.
Mac mini comes to mind, otherwise spring for a seedbox.