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My question is, Is there any good reason why the main frontend should be<br>
a different machine (to the backend and network server) or can I have<br>
them all in one quiet attractive box that lives on the book case?<br>
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Well that's the real question. Can you fit everything in one quiet attractive box that lives on the book case? There's always going to be tradeoffs. Small and quiet means poor cooling, which means you need much more expansive laptop-grade hardware to get the same performance and storage. Quiet and inexpensive means you're going to have to go big, to have large heatsinks and large, slow fans, which are going to make "attractive" difficult. Small and attractive is easy, but then you end up with a vacuum cleaner in the corner of your room.<br>
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You can do it, sure. However, many users find it is cheaper and quicker to split the two (or more) boxes. It's significantly easier to make a computer silent against the background of a TV, and turn it off when not in use, than it is to make it silent against a quiet room. There is always the third option of using a loud old machine in your garage, or other convenient room, and running audio/video/ir to your television remotely.</blockquote>
<div><br></div><div>There is no reason not to combine the two, just be careful with your component selection. </div><div><br></div><div>A good case with great thought to airflow is key... I like the Silverstone GD04/05 if you want something that is shallow enough to sit with the rest of your equipment. These cases use 3 large 120mm+ fans blowing cool turbulent air into the case for great cooling. The fans don't need to spin fast to cool well, so get a fan controller or wire them to run on 5V to keep them quiet. Coupled with a low thermal load CPU (<= 65watts) and the Silverstone fanless heatsink (remove the shroud) recommended for that case, and you can have a very quiet system. Use an SSD for your system drive/database so that your media drives can spin down when not in use; and buy quiet 5400RPM drives for your media. A bit of sound deadening pad on the panels of the case to help kill any vibration can't hurt either.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Odds are, the fan on your projector will be louder than your system if you plan it properly.</div><div><br></div><div>A visit to SPCR (<a href="http://www.silentpcreview.com/">http://www.silentpcreview.com/</a>) is recommended... the folks there are all about keeping computers quiet.</div>
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