CuedUp

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0056YNA1Q Hard drives are predicted to jump quite a bit in price, given the flooding in Thailand. That said, I think this 3TB external's a good buy. I can't seem to find much on what drive is inside, but does anyone think there would be a problem with popping it open and using the bare drive? EDIT: My mistake on the price. It was $110.99 when I listed it, and I mistakenly had in my brain that it was $109.99. Still seems like a sweet deal.

Good point on the drives. I'd heard something about drive prices being affected, but I just went over to Newegg and saw they'd jumped quite a bit. My migration will be slow, but I have enough free space spread out over those drives that I think I will be able to manage it just fine. If not, I have friends who can spare me a temp drive. Hopefully they'll be back down soon. I will also take it slow on the PSU to see how the system works. I can always order the PSU if need be, just thought I'd try to save a few bucks. Thanks for the warning!

Just went ahead and ordered. Everything should be here by the end of the week!

Alright, looks like that narrows it down to the MSI NF750! Two PCIe x16 slots Onboard NVIDIA GeForce 8200 Realtek 8211CL NIC 5xSATA onboard. I forgot to mention: I have a Cooler Master 4-in-3 cage already that will be moved over to the build, giving me 12 drive bays and plenty of room to expand and wait until my birthday or something for new 5-in-3s! With the 5 SATA onboard and 8 SATA from the Supermicro card, I'll be set for the time being. I'm going to pull one 4GB DDR3 1333 stick from my 12GB on my gaming rig and see how that works out for both machines. I have an Antec Earthwatts 430W PSU (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371034) in my spare parts drawer. Think I can use that for a little while? The SeaSonic PSU is something I'm looking at for the future, but if I can use the Antec right off the bat, that'd be awesome! I used a PSU calculator that said my load right now would be around 280W. Thanks for the feedback! I have my finger on the trigger of this build, ready to get started!

I've been a lurker here for about a month, and have been getting my build configured slowly. Right now I have seven drives storing data in my gaming rig, and I'm anxious to buy more drives and expand my storage space! This will be a TV show downloader, movie ripper, and general backup device that will feed my HTPC running XBMC.I'm actually just having a hard time working out which motherboard to use. Here's where I'm at: Case: AZZA Solano 1000R 10 bays, comes with trays for 8 drives that I can use until I get a 5 in 3 module later. Also I love the red interior. This is the only thing I've already purchased! PSU: Seasonic X650 Gold Wanted a fully modular PSU with enough oomph for a fully loaded case and gold efficiency. CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 260 Regor Wanted a dual-core for extra activities. Will probably be running sab, sickbeard & utorrent on my box. RAM: 2GB of whatever my motherboard will support. SATA Card: AOC-SASLP-MV8 with I also purchased a Verbatim Clip-IT 4 GB flash drive in black for my unRAID drive, so I'm set there. I have a handful of drives in my case currently that I will migrate over to the build to initially populate my case. Motherboard: I am kind of at a loss here as to which board to use. Here are the ones I'm eyeing: MSI NF750-G55 AM3 NVIDIA nForce 750a SLI HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard BIOSTAR A870 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s ATX AMD Motherboard MSI 880G-E45 AM3 AMD 880G HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard What I've been trying to find in a motherboard: Full ATX for extra PCI slots & hopefully at least 6 SATA ports Onboard video. I have an ATI Radeon 9800 card from 2003 or so, but I'm not sure it will work, if it works still, and I'd rather keep slots open for other stuff. NIC other than a Realtek 8111E, which seems to be pretty problematic from what I hear. Again, I could just buy an Intel NIC but would prefer to avoid the expense and loss of slot. If I had a choice, I'd like a red/black or black color scheme to match my case. My pickings seem slim though, so at this point I'll take anything. I would prefer a greater number of SATA ports so I can delay purchase of an AOC-SASLP-MV8 until a bit later. I'd prefer to spend under $100 on the board, but I'm a bit flexible there. How does my build look otherwise to you experts? And does anyone have any opinions or knowledge on a mobo that could fill my needs? I'm really looking forward to getting everything put together and booted, and I promise to be back with pics!