March 25, 201016 yr 1x Cooler Master Sileo 500 Silent Mid-Tower Case w/ 500W Power Supply $119.99 1x Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2 w/ DualDDR2 800, 7.1 Audio, Radeon 2100, Gigabit Lan, PCI-E $74.99 1xAMD Athlon™ II X2 245 Dual-Core 2.9GHz w/ 2MB Cache (Retail Box, Socket AM3) $59.99 2x Kingston ValueRAM 1GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM $65.98 5x SEAGATE 1.5TB Barracuda 7200.11 SATA II w/ 32MB Cache $399.96 Total $756.96 Shipping is free and in Canadian dollars. Im planning to steam files from this server to a eeepc running XBMC... thoughts/suggestions?
March 25, 201016 yr Not sure where do you plan to get these and if you are going to change your mind and order but: 1. All Gigabyte boards have very annoying feature called HPA. You can search here for the potential consequences. I have the same board but mine is the much older rev.1.0 and the BIOS won’t allow me to disable this "feature". Also I do not have an option for "Wake on Lan" which is important if you want to put your server to sleep and to wake it up with a "magic packet" so I am looking to replace it and get another one (not Gigabyte) with two PCI-e X16 slots. Also there are posts here that the latest hardware revision 4.0 has only four SATA connectors and you plan to start with 5 drives. And this motherboard GA-MA74GM-S2 is on sale right now @newegg.ca for C$51.99 with free shipping. 2. Regarding your CPU - you may consider the 45 W only AMD Sempron 140 Sargas 2.7GHz 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 - only C$34 with free shipping from Newegg.ca Good luck
March 25, 201016 yr Author According to the specs on the website (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX23607%28ME%29.aspx) it has 6 sata connectors. Im pretty open to changing up my spec, I was just tyring to make it as cost effective as possible. What mobo would you suggest?
March 25, 201016 yr Have you looked into a media front called MediaPortal? It is kind of spin off from Windows Media Center but better as it can stream live TV (given you have a digital compatible TV Tuner Card installed on your Media Server) to guests on other PCs on your network. Behaves like WMC but have some fewer advantages. Only works on Windows OS I think. As for the disk, I went for a WD Green 500GB (I know, it is smaller), but I stream all my media of my unraid. These WD Greens are one of the quietest disks on the market as they use fluid bearings, not traditional ball-bearings. Fluid bearings are quieter and I can't even hear it spinning. I use Seagate for my unraid, and their a lot louder, by which their not like jet plane loud, but you can notice their running, unlike the Western Digital disk. 1x Cooler Master Sileo 500 Silent Mid-Tower Case w/ 500W Power Supply $119.99 1x Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2 w/ DualDDR2 800, 7.1 Audio, Radeon 2100, Gigabit Lan, PCI-E $74.99 1xAMD Athlon™ II X2 245 Dual-Core 2.9GHz w/ 2MB Cache (Retail Box, Socket AM3) $59.99 2x Kingston ValueRAM 1GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM $65.98 5x SEAGATE 1.5TB Barracuda 7200.11 SATA II w/ 32MB Cache $399.96 Total $756.96 Shipping is free and in Canadian dollars. Im planning to steam files from this server to a eeepc running XBMC... thoughts/suggestions?
March 25, 201016 yr Author I was looking at windows options, I was always reading about lag issues with it that never seemed to crop up on the linux options. I have a friend who has a similar setup, but his backend is a solaris ZFS setup, which is more of a headache then I would lilke. I was also looking at Boxxee as well.
March 25, 201016 yr Read about this board here: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=5423.0 http://www.lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Hardware_Compatibility Memory express does "price matching" but they do carry only Asus and Gigabyte motherboards. And I am not sure how you can order rev3.0 and not 4.0 of this board. And where do you get 1.5GB disks for $80 each?
March 25, 201016 yr Author Oops... I typod on the calculation.. should be $499 for 5 disks. Hmm.... then my backup plan with a Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3L and a IntelE5300 2.6 GHz may work..
March 25, 201016 yr I'm running my HTPC with Windows 7 x64, which it is very smooth, quick and responsive. I'm a Linux man myself, but by wife only knows Windows (The sight of another OS would scare her from using it), hence why I went done the Windows path. Driver support seems more out there with Windows (I stand to be corrected on this fact). I was looking at windows options, I was always reading about lag issues with it that never seemed to crop up on the linux options. I have a friend who has a similar setup, but his backend is a solaris ZFS setup, which is more of a headache then I would lilke. I was also looking at Boxxee as well.
March 25, 201016 yr Since you are starting everything from scratch you may consider DDR3 based motherboards too as the price of the memory is comparable. You are buying a case without much expandability and 5 x 1.5TB HD for $500 will give you 6TB space which you can get by using 4 x 2TB for $20 more. (two separate orders from memory express pricematched to the $129.99 from pccyber.com). Just FYI the much loved Centurion CM590 is only C$67.10 from bestdirect.ca Not sure where are you located (if you are not in Ontario and the HST provinces you will get charged only GST from newegg.ca) but you can always try to use shopbot.ca and pricebat.ca to find the lowest price in Canada and to price match from there if possible. Good luck
March 25, 201016 yr Im planning to steam files from this server to a eeepc running XBMC... thoughts/suggestions? I'm a big fan of XBMC, been using it for over 5 years when it was only for the original xbox. If you are going to be streaming HD content and running a slower cpu box, get one with nvidia video that supports VDPAU. I have two acer revo 1600s, atom based boxes and run xbmc live (a stripped down ubuntu install with xbmc running on top of it). Since the linux version supports VDPAU (GPU decoding) I can stream 1080p without issue. The boxes are small, use little power and with a setup with a remote makes for a media center my whole family can easily use.
March 25, 201016 yr Just FYI the much loved Centurion CM590 is only C$67.10 from bestdirect.ca I would suggest this case too. Much more expandability and cooling ability for the future.
March 26, 201016 yr I too can vouch for this case. I have 3x 140mm fans running at 1200rpm, and 2x 4-3 disk enclosures installed in it. It keeps the disks in a non-aircon room on a summers day about 42C, with aircon running about 38C. The only gripe I have with it it has metal tabs in between the 5 1/4 bays, which can prevent certain disk enclosures from being installed in this case. Other users on this forum have either bent them out of the way or cut them off. Luckily I bought disk enclosures which had a groove/slit especially for cases with these annoying metal tabs. Just FYI the much loved Centurion CM590 is only C$67.10 from bestdirect.ca I would suggest this case too. Much more expandability and cooling ability for the future.
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