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My current media PC uses a "broken" nforce4 chipset that does not have Windows drivers to support 2TB disks. This is a problem for me as this PC stores all my media files, backups and data archives. My RAID controller is fully populated and trying to use the onboard SATA ports with a large array, or even a single 2TB drive, causes major issues. The PC is running Windows 7.

At this point I'm considering tearing the system down and building a new system, either running XBMC Live directly installed as the OS, or using the XBMC Windows version. The only reason I am considering the Windows version is that I need easy access to the files from other PC's in the household. The drives are currently all formatted NTFS. Also, should hardware fail, etc, I want to know that I can recover my RAID arrays and my Windows experience is much more extensive that my Linux experience. (Comments about this are welcome)

Right now this computer does the following:
- Windows Media Centre to playback local media (XBMC would replace this on my new system)
- uTorrent constantly running in the background (rtorrent would replace this on my new Linux based system)
- FTP server as I tend to move files to/from work to work on them
- Remote Desktop as I do all my maintenance, etc. through the remote desktop.

Specs for the current media PC:
- DFI LanParty nf4 Ultra-D
- 3gig DDR400 memory (2x1GB, 2x512MB)
- AMD Opteron 165 dual core 64bit CPU
- ATI Radeon HD 5700 PCI-e video card (1gig) - HDMI providing audio from this system to my 7.1 receiver
- BenQ LS DW1655 DVD-RW drive (Can XBMC support blue ray drives & playback?)
- Seagate ST3500630A ATA 500GB (OS drive. 354GB free)
- Three WD 1TB SATA drives on the nForce4 ports configured into a 1.82TB RAID5 array. (Holds data backups, archives of apps and personal data, etc. 1.1TB free)
- Perc5i PCIe RAID controller with 8 SAS/SATA ports, populated as follows:
- Antec 1200 case
- Gyration wireless keyboard and mouse
- Windows Media Centre IR remote
- Harmony 720 IR remote
- 47" LG 1080p LED LCD TV
- Sony 7.1 A/V receiver, providing audio and controlling all the HDMI connections to the TV

There is also an XBox360, PS3 and HD cable box located here. Elsewhere in the house is an Asus O!Play network media player and a couple of Windows PC's/Laptops.

Now, with all this said, what hardware is considered the BEST for XBMC? nVidia or ATI graphics? AMD or Intel CPU? What chipset? ...etc.

The system I have listed above is more than capable, but the nForce4 chipset is really biting my ass with the lack of 2TB support... No arrays over 2TB nor even a single 2TB drive. The PERC controller has me nervous enough running in Windows. I'd hate to consider trying to set it up under Linux.

My current idea is to simply move my data off the 500GB drives and sell them. I'd install a couple 1TB or 2TB drives on the PERC controller to replace them. That would avoid the nForce4 issue with 2TB drives.

With the age of this system, I'm wondering if that is worthwhile and I'm looking for opinions from others using XBMC.

What do y'all think? What would you do?

Are you sure the problem is the nForce chipset? Remember that Win7 doesn't allow partitions bigger than 2TB unless you the configure the disk as a GPT volume.

Anyhow, the Perc5/i is an excellent RAID controller. I have several servers with Perc5/i controllers and 8 x 1TB disks as a RAID5. It works fine in Ubuntu, though I'd stick with Windows if that's what you know. Incidentally you can download the RAID management software for the Perc5/i from http://www.lsi.com/obsolete/megaraid_sas_8480e.html (Support/Downloads tab and look for "MegaRAID Storage Manager - Windows"). The Perc is a rebadged LSI MegaRAID.

JR

Quote:Are you sure the problem is the nForce chipset? Remember that Win7 doesn't allow partitions bigger than 2TB unless you the configure the disk as a GPT volume.

Yup... If you try to format the drive it fails just stops about half way.

Seagate description of the issue

Unfortunately, nVidia stopped supporting my chipset way back at v9.xxx so the bug never got fixed.

Ah, in that case I'd definitely switch to a newer motherboard.

If you have a Perc controller I'd be seriously tempted to build a server that you can keep somewhere out of site (and where you can't hear it!) and use a Revo or something similar to drive the TV.

If you're going to stick with a single PC then pretty much anything will run XBMC with no problems. I like NVidia cards and I use a 9400GT. ATI cards seem to give more problems than NVidia, or at least I see more problems in this forum, though many people use ATI cards quite happily.

JR