HTPC Spec guidance

[Kilkus]

Hi All

its coming round to my birthday so i've decided to treat myself to a htpc, i'm looking for some guidance really as its been a while since my last build, 2years at least, so i'm a little out of the loop on good components these days.

I'm looking to keep the price down, however there is a few things i would like to have included in the build.

Needs to be quiet and reasonably cool
1080p playback without problems
I'm looking at running 2 drives to start off with a smaller one for the os and then a larger 1-2tb for the media, however i may want/need to extend this in the future so extra hdd bays would be great.
I'm not worried about a flash case its more than likely going to be hidden, but the smaller the better i don't want to be hiding some huge tower

Thats it for must haves i guess, i'd like to keep the price down to around £300 if possible.

Any advice and help would be much appreciated

Stu,

 

[Kilkus]

Thanks for the reply

yeah i know its probably a lot to ask for getting mulitple drives into a small case but i can at least hope 2 drives would be fine, i'm just thinking of expansion in the future as i want the computer to be able to standalone and not need to stream on a server/network

Thanks again

 

[Kilkus]

Thanks for all the responses guy, i've been pondering over this at work and am looking for some input really, Rather than having the stand alone media center i am now toying with having a media streamer? not sure thats the correct name and then a server where the media would be stored, thought this might be a better solution as i would also be able to use the server to back up my work also.

Someone at work suggested the acer revo, has anyone got any experience with one of these and if there any good at all?

like i say its another avenue i'm looking into so any feedback is much appreciated, once again thanks