Need some help setting up my home before I leave

BlackHawk

So as some of you know I'm moving out to Indiana next month and I need to leave my parents set up before I do. That entails leaving them some kind of media server and the ability to VNC in to every computer in the house.

For VNC I have TeamViewer in mind but I don't know what to do with the server. I need something that will serve out media to a Boxee box in the TV room but I'm not sure if to just load up the PC I'm leaving with HDD's or get a NAS. I feel like going the NAS route to save on energy but I wouldn't know which one to get, how many bays and what HDD's to get.

The other thing I'm unsure about is Usenet downloads, including SABnzbd, Sickbeard and CouchPotato. Do I put that on the PC I'm leaving or is there a NAS that can run it on the cheap?

Current set up at home is:

Dad's laptop
Mom's laptop
The PC that I'm leaving that's in my room
Boxee box in TV room

Any help and suggestions is appreciated.

lmorchard

Not sure if you'd call it cheap, especially if you have a PC laying around already, but I have a Synology 210j NAS that I use to run SABnzbd and that comes with a very slick desktop-like UI fully manageable from a browser. It also does torrents, out of the box. I started getting Sickbeard running on it at one point, but kind of wandered off from that.

Oh and also, this NAS is what I use to supply media to the living room TV via a WDTV box, and backup all the laptops in the house. I'm pretty sure the Boxee box is as good or better than the WDTV, though. I also have an external SATA dock connected to it with a bare drive dropped in that I swap occasionally with one at my inlaws' house for offsite backups of the backups and media.

You might also be able to find a PogoPlug for cheap ($20-50), and you can run a bunch of this kind of stuff from a thumbdrive or a decent USB external drive. Hacking one of those to taste will trade some $$$ for Linuxy elbow grease, though