Hi all
Looking at building a new PC (need to order tomorrow
) with the following requirements:
* PC will mainly be used as a media server, not to output directly to my display but to store files to be streamed via a Popcorn Hour.
* Ripping Blu-Rays/HD-DVDs will be a big priority. I have a big collection and I'm concerned about ripping/re-encoding times of 40GB+ discs (some people have quoted up to 20 hours? )
* Plenty of expansion potential for additional hard drives
* Occasional gaming use.
Here's the spec:
1 x Coolermaster Elite 330 Black Case With CM eXtreme Power 650W PSU
1 x Black Wireless Multimedia Keyboard & Optical Mouse - USB
1 x Xilence Red Wing 120mm Quiet Fan - 3&4pin connection
2 x Belkin Serial ATA 2.0 7-pin Cable (Red) 0.6m
1 x LG Electronics Blu-Ray & HD-DVD-Rom Combo 16x DVDRW Black SATA - Retail Box
1 x Samsung SM2032BW 20"TFT Monitor Widescreen 1680x1050 3000:1 300cd/m2 2ms
1 x Asus P5Q Deluxe P45 Socket 775 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard
1 x Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping (2.4GHz 1066MHz) Socket 775 L2 8MB Cache (2x4MB (4MB per core pair) Retail Boxed Processor
1 x ASUS HD 4670 512MB GDDR3 VGA DVI HDMI PCI-E Graphics Card
2 x OCZ 4GB Kit (2x2GB) 800MHz/PC2-6400 Memory Platinum Performance CL5 (5-4-4-18)
1 x Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium - Licence and media - 1 PC - OEM - DVD - 64-bit - English
3 x Western Digital Caviar Green 5400RPM SATA II 1TB HDD
1 x Seagate ST3500320AS 500GB Hard Drive SATA II 7200rpm *32MB Cache* - OEM
Total build cost: Approx £1100.
I plan on installing the seagate HD for the O/S and any apps/games, with the remaining 3 x WD HDDs being used purely to store files - I also plan to buy another WD 1TB drive to eventually run a RAID5 array.
How does it look? Any weaknesses?
Case, PSU, RAM all ok?
Re: RAID5. I have very little PC experience or knowledge, how easy is it to configure a RAID? (i.e. is this easy to do through Vista?). Also, I don't really want the additional expense of buying the 4th HDD right now as the build budget started @ £400 and has gone to £1100
- so I'm wondering if I put files on the drives now, will converting them to RAID drives wipe all of my data?
Any advice would be much appreciated! (especially tonight as I need to order tomorrow
)
Thanks in advance
Matt
Looking at building a new PC (need to order tomorrow
) with the following requirements:* PC will mainly be used as a media server, not to output directly to my display but to store files to be streamed via a Popcorn Hour.
* Ripping Blu-Rays/HD-DVDs will be a big priority. I have a big collection and I'm concerned about ripping/re-encoding times of 40GB+ discs (some people have quoted up to 20 hours?
)* Plenty of expansion potential for additional hard drives
* Occasional gaming use.
Here's the spec:
1 x Coolermaster Elite 330 Black Case With CM eXtreme Power 650W PSU
1 x Black Wireless Multimedia Keyboard & Optical Mouse - USB
1 x Xilence Red Wing 120mm Quiet Fan - 3&4pin connection
2 x Belkin Serial ATA 2.0 7-pin Cable (Red) 0.6m
1 x LG Electronics Blu-Ray & HD-DVD-Rom Combo 16x DVDRW Black SATA - Retail Box
1 x Samsung SM2032BW 20"TFT Monitor Widescreen 1680x1050 3000:1 300cd/m2 2ms
1 x Asus P5Q Deluxe P45 Socket 775 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard
1 x Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping (2.4GHz 1066MHz) Socket 775 L2 8MB Cache (2x4MB (4MB per core pair) Retail Boxed Processor
1 x ASUS HD 4670 512MB GDDR3 VGA DVI HDMI PCI-E Graphics Card
2 x OCZ 4GB Kit (2x2GB) 800MHz/PC2-6400 Memory Platinum Performance CL5 (5-4-4-18)
1 x Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium - Licence and media - 1 PC - OEM - DVD - 64-bit - English
3 x Western Digital Caviar Green 5400RPM SATA II 1TB HDD
1 x Seagate ST3500320AS 500GB Hard Drive SATA II 7200rpm *32MB Cache* - OEM
Total build cost: Approx £1100.
I plan on installing the seagate HD for the O/S and any apps/games, with the remaining 3 x WD HDDs being used purely to store files - I also plan to buy another WD 1TB drive to eventually run a RAID5 array.
How does it look? Any weaknesses?
Case, PSU, RAM all ok?
Re: RAID5. I have very little PC experience or knowledge, how easy is it to configure a RAID? (i.e. is this easy to do through Vista?). Also, I don't really want the additional expense of buying the 4th HDD right now as the build budget started @ £400 and has gone to £1100
- so I'm wondering if I put files on the drives now, will converting them to RAID drives wipe all of my data?Any advice would be much appreciated! (especially tonight as I need to order tomorrow
)Thanks in advance
Matt