HTPC / Storage system

Hodan01

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Looking to spec a system that is cool, low power and quiet, yet is capable of connecting to a 50” Panasonic TX-P50G20B via HDMI to play DVD’s ripped to the hard drive (currently have 600+ discs). No Gaming. Would probably run windows 7

Ideally should play blu ray (hopefully will rip eventually)
HTPC / storage system
I have put a couple of options together which are below

Option 1

MB: ZotacNM10F-E Atom D525
Scan.co.uk: Zotac NM10-F-E Intel Atom D525 CPU (1.8GHz) Motherboard
Case: Lian Li PC-Q008B
Scan.co.uk: Lian Li PC-Q08B, Black, Small Tower Chassis
Blu Ray HP BD240I
Scan.co.uk: BD Combo Drive HP bd240i - Read Blu-ray & Write DVD
Memory: Corsair XMS2 2GB DDR2
Scan.co.uk: Corsair Memory XMS2 2GB DDR2 PC2-6400 (800) Dual Channel Desktop - CM2X2048-6400C5
PSU: Corsair 430
Scan.co.uk: Corsair Builder Series CMPSU-430CX 430W Power Supply (PSU)

option 2
As above but with
Asus E35M1 Deluxe
Scan.co.uk: Asus E35M1-I DELUXE AMD Hudson M1 Integrated AMD Zacate 18W Mini ITX Motherboard
DDR 3 Ram
Scan.co.uk: Corsair Memory Value Select 2GB DDR3 1333 Mhz CAS 9 Dual Channel Desktop - VS2GB1333D3

Quite like the look of the Silverstone LC20, but cannot find any information as to whether it will take a mini itx board
Scan.co.uk: SilverStone LC20S Aluminum Desktop case in Silver w/o PSU - SST-LC20S

option 3: just build a small storage system / sever as above in the following case: Fractal R2
Scan.co.uk: Fractal Design Array R2 Mini-ITX NAS Case, Black, with 300W SFX PSU - FD-ARRAY-BLACK

and just add a blu ray drive to my main pc and rip / store over the network

Could someone please check that everything is compatible / suitable?, and if possible suggest better / alternative components (especially a remote).

Budget is approx £500 at present but will need to include a couple of 2tb hdd for the initial rips( i have one already)
 
People on here will know much better than me - but its worth taking a look at the hp microserver. owners thread on here with a lot of good info

not really what its built for - but lot of people using it for that

prob not up to ripping the files themselves - but it terms of playback it should do what you want of it
 
Probably will get one with faster CPU, may struggle with 1080p, H264 etc. No problem with SD, although if you want to use ffdshow scaling probably have a problem?
 
If you're going to incorporate storage in the system, what about one of these as a base. Chuck in some extra RAM, a bluray drive and a GPU in addition to your storage drives and you're away. I'm sure someone will chip in with recommendations for an OS for such a setup. There is a thread somewhere on this particular server. The £100 cashback runs out at the end of the month. I'm tempted.....
 
My setup would suit you HP micro server 4gb ram 4x2tb in raid 5 with a 16gb ssd for os nvidia gt 520 and blueraydrive running xbmc and Squeezebox on Linux works very well so far
 
Hodan01 said:
Looking to spec a system that is cool, low power and quiet, yet is capable of connecting to a 50” Panasonic TX-P50G20B via HDMI to play DVD’s ripped to the hard drive (currently have 600+ discs). No Gaming. Would probably run windows 7

Ideally should play blu ray (hopefully will rip eventually)
HTPC / storage system
I have put a couple of options together which are below

Option 1

MB: ZotacNM10F-E Atom D525
Scan.co.uk: Zotac NM10-F-E Intel Atom D525 CPU (1.8GHz) Motherboard
Case: Lian Li PC-Q008B
Scan.co.uk: Lian Li PC-Q08B, Black, Small Tower Chassis
Blu Ray HP BD240I
Scan.co.uk: BD Combo Drive HP bd240i - Read Blu-ray & Write DVD
Memory: Corsair XMS2 2GB DDR2
Scan.co.uk: Corsair Memory XMS2 2GB DDR2 PC2-6400 (800) Dual Channel Desktop - CM2X2048-6400C5
PSU: Corsair 430
Scan.co.uk: Corsair Builder Series CMPSU-430CX 430W Power Supply (PSU)

option 2
As above but with
Asus E35M1 Deluxe
Scan.co.uk: Asus E35M1-I DELUXE AMD Hudson M1 Integrated AMD Zacate 18W Mini ITX Motherboard
DDR 3 Ram
Scan.co.uk: Corsair Memory Value Select 2GB DDR3 1333 Mhz CAS 9 Dual Channel Desktop - VS2GB1333D3

Quite like the look of the Silverstone LC20, but cannot find any information as to whether it will take a mini itx board
Scan.co.uk: SilverStone LC20S Aluminum Desktop case in Silver w/o PSU - SST-LC20S

option 3: just build a small storage system / sever as above in the following case: Fractal R2
Scan.co.uk: Fractal Design Array R2 Mini-ITX NAS Case, Black, with 300W SFX PSU - FD-ARRAY-BLACK

and just add a blu ray drive to my main pc and rip / store over the network

Could someone please check that everything is compatible / suitable?, and if possible suggest better / alternative components (especially a remote).

Budget is approx £500 at present but will need to include a couple of 2tb hdd for the initial rips( i have one already)

That many discs your going to want alot of space for Hdd's, I would reccomend the nmedia 6000b Wich holds 6hdds or the silverstone lc10b Wich holds 8. Do you want to bitstream hd audio,(dts hd ma and Dolby tru hd)? If so you either need to get an I3(or I5) clarkdale or sandybridge cpu with internal gpu. (I recommend the 530,540,or 550 for clarckdale or 2100 or 2100t for sandy bridge)there's also the new pentium as well. or if you want better video processing to take advantage of post processing programs such as madvr etc. You should get either the nvidia gt430, gts450 or gtx460 it amd 5xxx or 6xxx series gpu. You could get either an h61, h67 or z68 mobo. The z68 allows for OC and caching to an ssd. People say 2gb is enough for a htpc but I always spend a few extra bucks and get 4gb. You'll have to get a 64 bit OS if you want 4gb or more ram as well.
 
Finally decided, and went for the HP microserver as recommended, can someone please recommend an OS which can boot from USB, willing to try anything before buying w7 (if i have too), and help decide which would be the better card, an ati 5450 or a gt520,
 
Also, would it be better to get a passive card, or a normal card, i have read the threads but there is no definative answer
 
xbmc live will boot from usb, and most linuxes i think. Windows will boot from usb but you can't install it and run from usb (i assume that is what you mean?)

Linux has poor support for amd/ati cards though.

Once xbmc live is installed you basically have ubuntu minimal with xbmc installed so you can go about otehr linux stuff as you normally would
 
Hodan01 said:
Also, would it be better to get a passive card, or a normal card, i have read the threads but there is no definative answer

Use ubuntu or windows ultimate live boot cd. It's better to use a passive cooled card fir htpc use in most cases.IMO.
 
Also, would it be better to get a passive card, or a normal card, i have read the threads but there is no definative answer

For a HTPC, get a passive one. No noise. Running ATI MSI 5450. CPU fan is Ninja, running at mimimum, case fan on low. Very quiet.
 
your first choice is bad (atom system) as the integrated graphics are puny.
AFAIK IT doesn't take any processing power to "rip" blu-rays . to re-encode them it takes a lot.
I think a non uber gfx card (think lower speed) is just as suitable as a passive card. As long as its not being pushed hard the fan will run fairly slow. And any modrn card has inbuilt acceleration for HD codecs.
if you want any gaming or encoding then forget about the atom,zacate or hp microserver, they are simply too underpowered (except maybe for SD material)
 

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