I have 12 drives (10 data, 1 parity, 1 cache) and only use my Unraid as media storage connected to a Mac Mini.  The Mac Mini handles all the video playing and downloading apps, so I don't run any plugins on my Unraid aside from a few SimpleFeatures interface upgrades. 

 

My Mobo died and I'm wondering if a Core i3 45watt is overkill?  Should I be fine with a dual-core Atom?

 

Thanks.

...what mobo's and Atom-CPU do you have in mind specifically?

There are some Atoms out there, where you could see a dependency ... normally only the speed of the disk matters for plain file reading/writing.

You could as well consider a dual-core Celeron or Pentium-G instead of the i3 to lower the cost.

I have used a dual core c60 and e350 which are comparable to atoms. I never noticed a difference for media playback.  I even ran some plugins.  Right now I run an 8 core avoton.  Which is a next generation atom. System is in my sig. It idles around 25 watts for the entire system. They have 4 core versions also.