Small computer help required please.

blasted

blasted

blasted

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Hello,

I have been asked by a friend to have a look at building a small shuttle/micro atx system and TBH the small stuff isn't something I have never really had to look into and dont know to much about. This person wants a small computer as opposed to a full size box that sits under a desk and gets in the way.

The user will not be overclocking or gaming, its for general internet and computing. Possibly playing with a few photographs or home movies, certainly not hard core encoding or anything like that.

The build I feel needs to incorporate the following aspects:

Nice case, stylish and not covered in bright lights ect
Quiet
Space for a two hard drives to run in RAID 1 (mirror for redundancy)
4 gig ram
No requirement for overclocking
Not for games
Able to output HDMI

I would say budget for a guess is probably circa £700 including OS

All help is greatly appreciated.
 
Casecom MA-1199 (Complies with your specifications)

Intel Core i3 540 3.06GHz (Clarkdale) (Socket LGA1156) Processor - £85.99

OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low-Voltage Dual Channel Memory - £41.99

ASRock H55M-LE Intel H55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 microATX Motherboard - £49.99

XFX ATI Radeon HD 5450 1024MB DDR2 PCI-Express Graphics Card - £41.99

From your specifications and what you use it for, it looks like you can build it for much cheaper than £700, I could also look for some decent HDD's also if you want, or if this setup doesn't seem right, there are plenty of other options.
 
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Thanks, I will have a look at those parts.

Suggestions on hard drives welcome, I suggested two in a mirror raid so he doesnt lose his photographs, hes an old chap and doesnt want to much hassle, Im not sure if he would ever use 500 gig let a lone 1TB, but with the cost of them it builds in a little redundancy.

Are the square desktop box type cases any good, something like the Lian Li PC-V354B Aluminium Mini-Tower Case?

I suppose it should have a disk drive and usb ports to plug stuff into.

Thanks
 
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blasted said:
Are the square desktop box type cases any good, something like the Lian Li PC-V354B Aluminium Mini-Tower Case?
Click to expand...

I think they are a little bit fiddly with the installation of HDD's and things, and seriously overpriced for it's uses.

As for the backup of photo's and things. I do not think RAID1 is a viable option for backing up data.
Problem is if you have both the HDD's in one chassis in RAID1 mode, and you have a motherboard or power failure, both your original and backup are equally screwed.
 
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