poofyhairguy Wrote:I found it unacceptable because HDs add:
- Noise
- Heat
- Size
To a HTPC. The best HTPCs are Mini ITX based (or pre-builts like Revos) due to size, but there doesn't exist a good Mini ITX case that can hold and cool two large HDs while playing 1080p without having a small (and therefore loud) fan blasting constantly.
I have to disagree. It all depends on your needs. If you want a NAS with 8 HDD's it's probably better to use a seperate PC or NAS enclosure. If you have enough with 2 HDD or maybe even 3 or 4 HDD's you can put it into a HTPC.
But I use my HTPC as NAS as well. But I only have 2 HDD's (software RAID) for storage (and a little one for the OS), which is enough for me. The reason for combining a NAS with a HTPC is that I didn't intend to get a HTPC at all
. It just added a lot of functionality for very little money to my original configuration.
Size isn't a problem. My case measures 264 x 112 x 230 mm, which isn't as small as most ION boxes, but it isn't a big tower either.
Heat is also no problem. It has a tiny fan on the ION chipset, and a tiny fan in the PSU. The HDD temps are 36 °C for the laptop disk with the OS, and 30 °C for the regular disks in RAID. The chipset and CPU temperatures are also acceptable, so there isn't even need for a casefan at the moment.
Noise is another thing. My box isn't very quiet, but as soon as I watch TV I don't hear it anymore. Since it isn't a problem for me I didn't take a look at it yet. If it starts to bother me I can look into it and buy a new heatsink for the chipset or a new fan for the PSU, whichever causes the noise. The case is also high enough for a decent casefan if needed.
So personally I don't think combining a NAS and a HTPC is always a bad idea. In some cases it can be good, in other cases it's probably better to use seperate devices.