HTPC noob, looking for advice on build and software
#1
Hello,

This is my first build, I'm planning to use this as a media server for my house, storing movies and music and such. Here are my goals for the project:

- Stream movies to the TV through HDMI (not wireless, unless there is a cheap and easy way to do that that I haven't seen yet)
- I would like to be able to stream movies from the server to my laptop, over the house wifi. I would like to be able to stream 2 1080p videos at once. Is this asking for too much?
- I want to play music from the server, so I will hook up speakers to it. I'm not an audiophile or anything, I just want standard quality music. The HTPC will be either streaming video or playing music, it wont have to do both simultaneously.
- I want to be able to back up any and all files wirelessly. So I could send my music library that I have on my laptop to my media server without having to directly plug it in. Also the same with downloading, I would want to be able to pull any files I wanted off the server and onto my local device.
- I would like to use a free operating system, I have Ubuntu in mind but I am open to suggestions. I don't want to go with too specialized an OS though, because I want to be able to run scripts I would write on this server.
- For now I wont be going with a raid array, as I am still a college student and can't afford to buy so many hard drives. But I would like to keep that option available.

An additional requirement I have for this project:
- I need to be able to run a web server from it. Nothing too crazy, really just a few commands I would send from my laptop or smart phone. This would need to be running 24/7.

I don't plan to do any gaming on this device.

And here is the hardware I have selected

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1ldsI
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1ldsI/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1ldsI/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor ($109.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Pro4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($109.98 @ Outlet PC)
Memory: G.Skill 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($36.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Antec EarthWatts Green 380W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($47.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $404.93
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-07-27 11:13 EDT-0400)

Right now I don't have a case selected. I was looking at the fractal mid tower, since it has great reviews from everyone, a good number of hard drive bays and it is just a cool looking case in general http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6811352022. But it is quite expensive, and after browsing for a few minutes I found some other options, here's just one of them: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...46076-L07A. The prospect of saving $50 is appealing. I know cable management and fan configuration is important, but I've never built a PC before so I don't know how to evaluate what impact one case or another would have on that. Some advice on that would be helpful.

As of now I am currently living in another country for the next 4 weeks. So I am looking to purchase the parts and have them shipped to my house in America so they will be ready when I return to start building immediately. So ordering them right now is not necessary, but I would like to do so in the next week or two. Unfortunately this means I cannot fill out most mail in rebates because I wont be there to receive the product in time. So I have some time to hunt around and find good deals, but not a ton of time. If the CPU looks good I will pull the trigger on it soon, since its $20 off on new egg right now.

I wont be going with RAID now because I can't afford to buy more hard drives. I'd like to still be able to upgrade to RAID at some point in the future though.

I'm not sure what to pick for the RAM. They all seem the same to me. I've heard you don't need more than 4 gigs for a server, do you guys agree with that?

I've heard that its worth getting a second hard drive for the operating system. What do you think of that? For now I will probably avoid getting an SSD since I want to save some money. But I could throw in a small but fast hard drive if it would give me a noticeable performance boost

I want to make sure that I have enough horsepower for this machine to do what I need it to. Will the CPU and mobo combination be able to handle simultaneously streaming two 1080p videos? The CPU has HD2500 built in graphics processing, I was told that should be enough to handle video streaming. According to pcpartpicker I will need approximately 144W for this build. Is a 380W PSU a good choice for this? On newegg it says that it doesn't come with a power cord, I can just buy it seperately correct? This will work right: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6812189160 ? Speaking of cables, will all the parts come with the cables I need to connect them with? Or do I need to worry about ordering that all separately?

Also, I plan to run Ubuntu desktop on this, with XBMC handling the media.

So how does my hardware look?
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HTPC noob, looking for advice on build and software0