First, a little background information:<br><br>I'm building a new media room in my basement, and I'll be adding my first HDTV to my setup which means I'll need another frontend. My current setup consists of an old P4 Dell that hosts my 3 tuner cards (Hauppauge PVR-250 and 2x PVR-500) and recordings drive, and I have an 2 500gb drives in an LVM arrangement on my desktop machine that host my video collection (mainly ripped DVDs) which I share via NFS with my various frontends. My video storage is filling up fast, and I'd like to remove it from my main desktop machine (since I'm prone to tinkering on that machine, and that leads to reboots...which is a pain with all my frontends and NFS). Since my video collection is growing larger, and I since I see little chance of the growth rate slowing) I'm starting to become concerned with the risk of a drive failure wiping out my entire collection (the time I've spent ripping my dvds is extensive, and something I'd rather not repeat). <br>
<br>Since I need a new frontend, and since I can't currently do all I want my current backend to do with a single machine, my proposal is to build a new combined frontend/backend for my new HDTV, and to retire my old Dell backend. For the time being, I intend to move my 3 tuners to the new backend/frontend machine (which are analog, but I have no intention of stepping into the HD tuning world yet, at least not HD cable, I may tinker with OTA...), add two more 500gb drives for my video collection, that I will work into a raid 5 array. I'll also be adding a 500gb drive just for recordings. I'll install the OS, database, etc., on an 80gb drive. The network will be hard-wired via gigibit ethernet. I'll be using a Phenom 4X cpu, 4gb of 1066mhz ram, and the motherboard has onboard nvidia 8-series graphics. <br>
<br>It seems like a 4 core cpu with 4gb of ram should be able to handle the various tasks involved; displaying HD video content (on occasion), commercial flagging, occasional DVD rips, and the overhead involved with the RAID array. I run .21, and tend to stick with the major releases, so I won't have VDPAU support until it .22, so displaying HD content will likely work the machine a bit in the near future. My main goal is that it perform any/all of these tasks at any given time. I'd like to be able to set it up so that video playback has high enough priority that anything less noticable to a human will be done when it gets done (if the CPU is maxed, then a DVD rip may take longer, or commercial flagging would have to go a bit slower, etc.). <br>
<br>I will be wiring the room for 5.1 surround-sound speakers through the walls, and I will be using the on-board sound, assuming it will be powerful enough. If need be, I will add some kind of amplifier (this will be quite configurable for me, as I will be integrating a network and sound/video patch panel).<br>
<br><br>So what does the myth community think? Can this work as I've eluded I'd like it to work? Are there any bone-headed hardware choices I've made? Do I need more? Can I do it with less? <br><br>If anyone's interested, here's what I'm looking to buy from newegg:<br>
<br>Case:<br><a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811160008">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811160008</a><br><br>DVD burners (2x):<br><a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151176">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151176</a><br>
<br>OS Drive:<br><a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148231">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148231</a><br><br>Raid aray drives (4x)<br><a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148288">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148288</a><br>
<br>Recording drive:<br><a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148288">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148288</a><br><br>Motherboard:<br><a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157141">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157141</a><br>
<br>Network Switch:<br><a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122139">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122139</a><br><br>Power Supply:<br><a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153052">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153052</a><br>
<br>Memory:<br><a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104038">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104038</a><br><br>CPU:<br><a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103244">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103244</a><br>
<br>Case Fan (2x)<br><a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835132010">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835132010</a><br><br>Case Fan (3x)<br><a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835705038">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835705038</a><br>
<br>Of the items in the list, I'm the least sure about the power supply, and the fans. I've never had a bad power supply, ever, and I've had one bad fan (in my current dell backend that I replaced 5 years ago...no problems since). <br>
<br>Thanks for reading, and thanks for any assistance. <br><br>-Josh<br>