[Sandgrouper]

Hi everyone, first time poster, long time lurker. Please be gentle!

I'm a bit of a beginner when it comes to putting together hardware, and I'm after a little help for a HTPC build. I currently run a Pivos XIOS M3, connected to 2 portable HDDs via an Airport Extreme. Needless to say, there's a bunch of issues with that set up so I'm after something a bit more robust, but still on a budget side. If I had it my way with a budget i'd probably go out an splurge on an Asus Eeebox just for the pure ease of it and aesthetics, but my bank account likes to put a dampener on that kind of thing.

I'm not looking for anything souped up to run 3D movies, but 1080P playback would be great.

Generally this is what I'm hoping to have:

• OpenElec running on it via an SSD
  
• Use it as a media server for my macbook, PS3 and XIOS to stream content from
  
• Wireless
  
• No need for optical drive
  
• HDMI
  
• A decent number of USB ports, preferable 3.0
  
• Small footprint
  
• Steam content from youtube/xbmc add ons
  
• Download torrents automatically (not really a priority, I'm happy to do that separately on my macbook)
  

It's not the most demanding of requirements, but after investing in the XIOS, I was sorely disappointed. The biggest irk was that in order to stream any content from the HDDs connected to the AE unless I had mounted it on my macbook first. I'm hoping for a build that will serve as a NAS and media server and have minimal lag when scrolling through movies and TV shows. I plan on moving the XIOS to the spare tv for my nephew & niece when they stay over. The XIOS also has a dodgy method of mounting HDDs assigning them new locating names (USB01, USB02), depending on the sequence you plug HDDs in, instead of just following name paths, really screws up scraping.

I'd like to build this as budget as I can get away with, I'm happy to invest in a decent amount of RAM and an SSD if it means no lag. It drives me nuts at the moment. I'm currently located in Australia, so some of the stuff I've looked into on Amazon ends up costing a bit after taking postage into account if they don't post direct to Aus, those shipping forwarding business must make a killing.

Cheers everyone,

Sandgrouper.

[Ned Scott]

Is the XIOS running Android or the Linux firmware? The Linux firmware makes a very big performance gain. The Android firmware is... not enjoyable on the XIOS (which is not to say it won't improve in the future, but I can only speak for now).

As for an alternative, hard to say because you're in Australia, and I know how that jacks with prices. Thankfully, we've got some Aussies floating around here who probably have some good advice :)

[Ned Scott]

Sounds like you were running the Linux version that used the usb1, usb2, etc mounting method, naming. Newer nightly builds have changed this to use drive names.

[Sandgrouper]

I'm running Linux on the XIOS, it's still a bit on the sluggish side. I've even tried programming it to store scraped media info to store on a SD card so it doesn't hog the small internal HD, but it's still pretty disappointing. I haven't tried the newer nightly builds yet, might have to give that a shot if I can't afford a new HTPC. Would love to just replace the piece of junk. The only plus side is that it runs better than the mk802III I got for my sister.

I was looking at getting the OpenElec Build #2 or #5, but trying to source it into Aus is a bit of a hassle and royally jacks the prices up, especially if I want to replace the HDD with an SSD.