Media Access in new build home project?

[ashthekid]

I'm in the process of building a new home and sorting out the design for all networking and cabling etc. One area I would like to cover and perhaps have is a storage drive near my router that I can store films and video files on that could then be accessed by any TV that has the ability to view them on (much like my Samsung does now).
What I would like to know is if this can be done over a network with CAT7 cabling that I intend to install anyway for example so that when the TV at the other end has the CAT7 cable connected they can access the storage device I have plugged in or is there a better solution? My other thought was to run USB cabling from a storage device located next to the router but that seems a bit excessive running USB cables everywhere?

Any ideas?

 

[Phil87]

I'm thinking of doing the same thing when I move house - my thinking is to have several rooms with an ethernet socket, each wired in to a convenient place where a switch and filer server / NAS can go. Then you would just connect everything to the switch including an ethernet connection to the router, and everything should "just work".

So it would look something like this:

Router --- switch --- file server / NAS
-------------| |
-------------| --- TV
-------------|---PC

I basically have this setup at the moment, but without ethernet wired in properly, and it works great.
Edit - updated my terrible diagram above, can't get it to look right . Basically everything connects to the switch, and if needed you can add another switch e.g. behind the TV to connect other things like consoles (I think that would work).

 

[LuckyBenski]

USB doesn't distribute like that - it can only be plugged into one host not multiple. It also doesn't work over long runs. But anyway, USB wouldn't be the right solution anyway.

Networking is where it's at. Most ISP routers have a USB port which will share a drive if plugged in. As you're going custom with networking I assume you'll be getting a third party router anyway.

Realistically though serving the files is a bare minimum. A simple server (or PC) will also be able to serve metadata and transcode. This will either improve network traffic or allow better compatibility with devices.

But then you have the benefit of a server to offer other tasks. Backup, photos, music, VPN etc. With your level of infrastructure I'd assume you will be wanting a server of some kind!