[tarheelscuba]

All -

First, I have to say this entire board has been extremely useful as I contemplate throwing together my first HTPC build. I haven't built a PC from scratch in a really long time and was able to quickly come up to speed on what's out there using the wealth of knowledge contained in these forums. I was hoping folks could take a quick glance at what I'm planning and let me know if I'm headed for trouble in any particular area.

So, without further adieu...

Goals
Play 1080p rips (predominately .mkv format)
Eventually hook up a nice 3.1 or 5.1 sound system

I'll be running Ubuntu on this box. To start, storage will be internal to the HTPC. I may eventually put together a NAS and stream from that, but for now this will be self-contained.

Planned hardware

CPU: Intel Core i3-3225 Ivy Bridge 3.3GHz LGA 1155 55W Dual-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I33225 (http://goo.gl/uTVBEP)

CPU Cooler: Scythe SCKZT-1000 80mm Kozuti CPU Cooler (http://goo.gl/rR6WEV)

Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard (http://goo.gl/P1zAGR)

RAM: 1x Patriot Viper 3 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model PV38G160C0RD (http://goo.gl/z0oWcm)

Case: SILVERSTONE Black Aluminum / Steel Grandia Series SST-GD08B ATX Media Center / HTPC Case (http://goo.gl/i6AKF6)

Power Supply: SILVERSTONE Strider Plus ST50F-P 500W ATX 12V v2.3 & EPS 12V 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Full Modular Active PFC Power Supply (http://goo.gl/GwdQBM)

SSD: Mushkin Enhanced Atlas Series MKNSSDAT30GB-DX mSATA 30GB SATA III Synchronous MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (http://goo.gl/9eEdRt)

Hard Drives: 4x Western Digital Red NAS Hard Drive WD20EFRX 2TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive (http://goo.gl/R5z34n)

Wireless NIC: TP-LINK TL-WN881ND Wireless N300 PCI Express Adapter, 300Mbps, w/WPS Button, IEEE 802.1b/g/n, 64/128 bit WEP, WPA/WPA2 (http://goo.gl/PntmTa)

Questions
I'm thinking of either using UNRAID or the motherboard's built-in RAID support. What are the pros/cons of either approach?
Is there any reason I would need a separate video card?
This appears to be a fairly large case, but do you see any issues fitting all of this? Any heat issues with this setup?

Thank you all for taking the time to read this and provide input. It is truly appreciated!

[Xeno43]

... Are you sure you want your media computer to also be the file server? I'd do a fileserver plus a frontend if I was you, would limit possible issues and heat production. You should also go with 2 sticks of 4GB rather than 1 stick of 8GB as it will allow the memory to operate faster (more bandwidth). And that CPU is kind of over kill if you only want it for running XBMC.

[zxz0O0]

You don't need a seperate video card, the Intel HD4000 will play 1080p videos fine. As for the memory, yes 2x4GB is faster but you will never notice the difference so go with whatever is cheaper. You want it also to be a file server, is that because you can not connect it over Ethernet with your network? Usually I don't recommend using the HTPC as a file server.
Is there any reason you are buying a mSATA ssd? The motherboard doesn't seem to have a mSATA port so you would have to use an adapter. Better just buy a SSD with SATA port.

[tarheelscuba]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Realized what I had done with the SSD drive and have that swapped out now.

As for why one machine, was really trying to keep it simple but having thought about it some more I might as well just build them separately the first time around. I will need to drill a whole in the wall to hardwire this onto the LAN, but that's no big deal.

Xeno43 - if I was going to swap the CPU for something lower key, what would you suggest? The XMBC wiki suggests "Fast modern dual-core processor is required to decode H.264 videos in FullHD (1080p) unless you have hardware video decoding".

[jacintech.fire]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Realized what I had done with the SSD drive and have that swapped out now.

As for why one machine, was really trying to keep it simple but having thought about it some more I might as well just build them separately the first time around. I will need to drill a whole in the wall to hardwire this onto the LAN, but that's no big deal.

Xeno43 - if I was going to swap the CPU for something lower key, what would you suggest? The XMBC wiki suggests "Fast modern dual-core processor is required to decode H.264 videos in FullHD (1080p) unless you have hardware video decoding".

As far as drilling holes into your wall, maybe you want to look into a powerline setup. Belkin has a 1Gbps set out now. A 500Mbps setup has powered my 5 display setup for over 3.5 years, and except for uncompressed bluray folders,it is able to stream everything I throw a it

[joelbaby]

Build 2 machines.

Use Celeron 1037U board for running xbmc with 2GB ram. (Maybe wait for the Baytrail motherboards to be released by MSI).

Make the other machine the NAS.

Not sure why you think you need 8GB of ram to watch a movie. Do you want to cache the whole thing into RAM for some reason?

[zxz0O0]

I would keep that CPU and take 4GB of memory. Better be overpowered than underpowered. Besides money does not seem to be a big deal in your case.

[00b5]

Build 2 machines.

Use Celeron 1037U board for running xbmc with 2GB ram. (Maybe wait for the Baytrail motherboards to be released by MSI).

Make the other machine the NAS.

Not sure why you think you need 8GB of ram to watch a movie. Do you want to cache the whole thing into RAM for some reason?

This. The build you listed is basically a server already.

Buy less RAM, a cheaper non/htpc case, use a retail cpu with fan, get 3x 4TB Red drives, and install unRAID (free version supports up to 3 hdds).

Use the rest of the funds/parts and make a small slient XBMC pc for the frontend (or get a NUC and add ram, or a pi for now and if you don't like it, upgrade it later).

Start with the largest hdds you can swing now, the way unRAID works, the parity drive needs to be the same size as your largest drive (so skip the 2tbs, get fewer 4tbs, and just add more later)

You can also go mITX for the server, and use one of these really small cases, and still have room to expand up to 6/7 hdds down the road.

[vmstek]

I would not count out the Ubuntu Saucy mini iso x64 install from this thread http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=174854
It runs amazingly well.

I run this with MySQL, PHPAdmin, SABnzbd, Transmission, 5 HD's, and Apache, on an 6 year old Intel 4-core (4G ram) with a old ATI5770.
There's 3.4G of free memory and the CPU stays at 3-6% when playing movies.
It can be playing a BD rip downstairs, feeding my upstairs ATV520e, while downloading another, and it never lags or studders.

[tarheelscuba]

Ok. So this has all been very helpful; thank you all for that. So, I've done some more research and this is what I've come up with. Anyone see any issues with this?

HTPC Front End running XMBCUbuntu

Motherboard / CPU: BIOSTAR NM70I-1037U Intel Celeron 1037U Dual-Core 1.8GHz Intel NM70 Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU/VGA Combo

Case: SILVERSTONE Milo series ML05B Black Acrylic Front Panel, 0.8mm SECC body Mini-ITX Media Center / HTPC Case

PSU: SILVERSTONE Milo series ML05B Black Acrylic Front Panel, 0.8mm SECC body Mini-ITX Media Center / HTPC Case

Plus RAM and SSD...


For the file server, here is what I have:

Motherboard: ASRock B75 PRO3 LGA 1155 Intel B75 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

CPU: Intel Celeron G1620 Ivy Bridge 2.7GHz LGA 1155 55W Dual-Core Desktop Processor BX80637G1620

Case: Antec Three Hundred Two Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case with Upgraded 2 x USB 3.0

PSU: SILVERSTONE Strider Plus ST50F-P 500W ATX 12V v2.3 & EPS 12V 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Full Modular Active PFC Power Supply

Plus RAM, SSD and main storage drives.

Been doing some reading on ZFS, BTRFS and Unraid and now not 100% sure which way I want to go there. Will likely buy hardware and play around with various software options before settling on something.

[joelbaby]

This is better, because now you have separated things. Now you can add as many HTPC boxes as you want to read files from the server. You can upgrade the HTPC without dismantling everything.

For the HTPC ... if you are only going to watch 1080p, then why not look at the DN2820FYK NUC. It will be cheaper than your motherboard + case + PSU. You still have to add ram and 2.5" SSD. I'm not sure about the XBMCUbuntu, but OpenElec can be put on it.

If you want to have room for a BluRay drive, then the NUC will not be big enough, so then you should stick to a Mini-ITX size case.

For the server, consider just getting an HP Microserver N54L ... save you the time of building it all yourself. Will cost about $250 without the disks.

[Dougie Fresh]

For the C1037U motherboard, consider the Gigabyte instead. Having tried a few different embedded Celeron motherboard brands the Gigabyte's fan is the quietest.