Media server - spec comments needed

Bigmonty

Bigmonty

Bigmonty

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Joined
6 Mar 2007
Posts
113
Hi

Gonna have a first go at building a media server and would appreciate some comments on my spec.

The server will run Windows Home Server 03 and will need to be able to stream or transcode and stream HD media files to my PS3. It will also need to low on power consumption as it will be on 24/7 and I would like it to be as quiet as possible.

It will also need have enough room for HD drive upgrades in the future. Possibly to go as high as 12tb+ once I start ripping blurays etc..

Anyway here goes

Antec 900 Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black

Asus M3A78-EM AMD 780G (Socket AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

Corsair VX 450W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-450VXUK)

E4500 Core2Duo CPU (already have this)

5 * 1.5tb Hard drives (already have these)

2GB Ram (already have this)

I think the total cost will be about £200. However I am willing to go higher if anybody recommends alternative products to meet my functionality requirements.

Cheers in advance.
 
First of alll the motherboard you have chosen is for AMD Socket AM2+, rather than the Intel Socket LGA775 your processor uses so you would need to change this to something like the following:

Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L Intel G31 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard - £34.99

You could substitute the power supply you have picked to sometihng a bit smaller like the Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK) (£39.99) as 400W will we enough to run this system as you dont seem to be planning any massive overclocks or running a hi-end GPU

So in terms of those components you would be looking at:

PSU: Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK) - £39.99
Case: Antec 900 Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black - £79.99
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L Intel G31 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard - £34.99

Total inc shipping: £168.49
 
Thanks, school boy error picking the motherboard there. However I really need 6 sata controllers on the MB, which I don't think the one you have suggested has.

I'll take on board the PSU comments.

The rest of the spec okay for transcoding HD files on the fly, which is main concern.
 
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Try this board:

Gigabyte GA-P43-ES3G Intel P43 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard @ £59.98

Brings the total cost to £198.49

For transcoding HD you would probably be better off with a little more ram than 2GB aswell, I've no experience with that CPU but @ 2.2Ghz I would say it may struggle a bit but maybe someone else can help out on that one.
 
I have just put together this for a similar project, not sure if it will be long term though.

The 450w PSU will not do 12 HDD's and most budget graphics cards will outperform the onboard sollution in particular if you want to run 7.1 over HDMI.

Gigabyte GZ-X1 case
Asrock 4CoreDual Sata2 mobo
Intel E5200 (stock cooler may fit AF7 later)
Corsair XMS Pro PC3500LL 2x1Gb
HIS IceQ 3850 512mb AGP graphics
M-Audio 2496 soundcard
Samsung IDE Superwritemaster DVD drive
Samsung F1? 640Gb HDD
WD Green 1.5Tb HDD
3 120mm case fans one of which is a Scythe Kama Bay
Corsair HX450W modular PSU
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
 
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