New Build (My new HTPC)

lukesparksoff · *Last edited by lukesparksoff; 02-09-2006 at 15:03.*

I have a $1000 so far waiting for my tax money to come back

DFI LanParty UT RDX200 Cross-Fire Socket 939 ATI Radeon XPRESS 200 CrossFire AMD Motherboard - Retail
$168.00
POWERCOLOR 1900Crossfire retail Radeon X1900 CrossFire Edition 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail
$599.00
I allready have an antec TPII 550W PSU
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Toledo 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Dual Core Processor Model ADA4800CDBOX
- Retail $630.00
I own OCZ EL Platinum Revision 2 2GB
2 Maxtor DiamondMax 11 6H500F0 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive $320 x 2 ($640)
and a MAXTOR 1 TB 7200 RPM FireWire 800/400 / USB 2.0 OneTouch III Turbo Edition External Hard $750
ZALMAN CNPS9500 LED 92mm 2 Ball Blue LED Light Cooling Fan with Heatsink - Retail
$59.99

looking into Taprdrives to backup my harddrives,but I don't know much about them.So if there's any network guys out there with tapedrive info please pass it on

CleavesF · 02-09-2006, 17:11 | posts: 588 | Location: Madison or Chicago

Why are you spending so much money on the mobo and video card?

Unless you're also using this PC for your gaming there's no need for that. All you really need is the massive storage you have outlined.

Everything else should be also quantity and quiet PC components.

So obviously the Zalman is a good choice, but the LED light version? c'mon... no one is looking for windows on HTPC. Try to get 4 gigs of ram if you can of whatever brand. Remember quantity over quality here.

For cpu get anything over 2 ghz. As for a videocard, I would recommend an All in Wonder series card, I'm pretty sure a 8500 would do. Get a Theater 550 Pro on top of it, or an HD videocard to record multiple shows on your HTPC. BeyondTV 4 is a must.

tapebackups keep forever. But they are slllloooowwww... if anything, use a DL DVD burner for now.

lukesparksoff · 02-09-2006, 18:05 | posts: 17 | Location: Chicago

Quote:

Originally Posted by CleavesF

Why are you spending so much money on the mobo and video card?

Unless you're also using this PC for your gaming there's no need for that. All you really need is the massive storage you have outlined.

Everything else should be also quantity and quiet PC components.

So obviously the Zalman is a good choice, but the LED light version? c'mon... no one is looking for windows on HTPC. Try to get 4 gigs of ram if you can of whatever brand. Remember quantity over quality here.

For cpu get anything over 2 ghz. As for a videocard, I would recommend an All in Wonder series card, I'm pretty sure a 8500 would do. Get a Theater 550 Pro on top of it, or an HD videocard to record multiple shows on your HTPC. BeyondTV 4 is a must.

tapebackups keep forever. But they are slllloooowwww... if anything, use a DL DVD burner for now.

This HTPC is going in the living room it will be gaming on it ,It's going to be hookedup wireless with 2 other all-in-wonders that are in other rooms so I don't need another one.not to flam but I wouldn't put a 8500 in anything.On the network there is 4 DL DVD burners,and 1.3 Terabytes of HDD space.Thankyou for looking out but I've already out grown the system your suggesting

PS the old HTPC is in my SIG

HanShot1st · 02-09-2006, 22:19 | posts: 1,153

HTPCs don't need that power at all. Sounds like you are building a gaming rig here.

What specifically are you trying to do? DVD playback? HDTV/SDTV tuners? Music server?

The system in your sig is already overkill for most HTPC stuff. Not to say overkill isn't a good thing, but it would really help if you told us what exactly you plan to do with this system. If you're really building a HTPC gaming rig, then that's different altogether than a run of the mill HTPC.

RTSAnime · 02-09-2006, 22:24 | posts: 876 | Location: USA

backing up terrabytes of information is hard. Using additional HD's as backup is probably the most cost effective way to do this. Also Why are you getting an external terrabyte HD setup? Why not just get 4 internal HD's and run them as 2 Raid or JBOD setups? Unless you plan on using that external HD as a backup drive.

lukesparksoff · 02-10-2006, 02:08 | posts: 17 | Location: Chicago

Let's start over I have 3 HTPC's they are connected together on a wireless network each one already has massive movie files that I can reach all movie files from any of the PC's.I'm building a movie library,I have over 400 movies on HDD and growing about 10 movies a week(50-80GB a week).I'm adding a 4th HTPC to the network that's going in the living room ,that's going to be connected to my 65" LCD SONY,bluetooth keyboard and mouse.It's going to be some heavy gaming on this PC also (explain's the GPU and MOBO)heavy DVD encoding(explains the CPU)and I already have 1.3 terabytes of movie files(explain the massive HDD space needed) I ran into his guy who is a Media expert ,and he said 4-6 years and I will be getting degregation on HDD and DVD's.To save my collection put the movie files on Tape (explains the tapedrive).I don't know anything about tape and was looking for direction. Yes I already know this isn't a typical HTPC but it's going to be much more.If anyone have info please pass it on THANKYOU

lukesparksoff · 02-11-2006, 05:00 | posts: 17 | Location: Chicago

I guess no one here has Info on tapedrives,do anyone know were I can go for the info

Island · 02-12-2006, 03:56 | posts: 401

Quote:

Originally Posted by lukesparksoff

I guess no one here has Info on tapedrives,do anyone know were I can go for the info

Here's one..1st link that came up after googling-http://www.exabyte.com/

BTW- I'm just wondering, how do you get degradation on HDD and DVD's? Not trying to be sarcastic, but I really never knew that quality on DVD and Hard drives could degrade...Please explain what this expert you are speaking of, meant with his comment to this..thanks

lukesparksoff · 02-12-2006, 05:29 | posts: 17 | Location: Chicago

Quote:

Originally Posted by Island

Here's one..1st link that came up after googling-http://www.exabyte.com/

BTW- I'm just wondering, how do you get degradation on HDD and DVD's? Not trying to be sarcastic, but I really never knew that quality on DVD and Hard drives could degrade...Please explain what this expert you are speaking of, meant with his comment to this..thanks

I didn't know the guy but I found a article that was close

Very Short Life Span For Burned CD’s DVD’s!
http://armyofblogs.com/very-short-li...ned-cds-dvds-2

Dojomann · 02-12-2006, 08:07 | posts: 3,637 | Location: Windsor, ON, Canada

I have some burnt CDs from bout 1998... they still work fine.

lukesparksoff · 02-12-2006, 08:37 | posts: 17 | Location: Chicago

Quote:

Originally Posted by dojomann

I have some burnt CDs from bout 1998... they still work fine.

compare it to the orginal on a good system you loss something in music quality.And I don't want any loss in quality

I have CD's from 98 also ,data files and video/music files are a little different

The info I got was from a person who protect corp.data for a living and just to see if this guy was pulling my leg I did a search on the topic,the first link was a article that said the same thing (close to) what he was talking about.I think it's some truth to his statement.

I really don't want to debate the topic,I just want info on tapedrives please help

HanShot1st · 02-12-2006, 18:16 | posts: 1,153

To be blunt, this isn't the best resource for info on storage.

Assuming you didn't pirate all your movies, I would think that having the original discs would be good enough if you lose the ripped versions to corruption or HDD failure.

CleavesF · 02-12-2006, 20:44 | posts: 588 | Location: Madison or Chicago

How would you lose quality on a burnt DVD?

The quality is loss already when you compress the tv show or movie on the HD in your computer. Just like mp3 and divx encoding, you always lose quality once you change formats from an uncompressed source.

Once you transfer the source to a dvd... it's the same quality as how you recorded it in the first place. Go ahead and use tape backup... but it'll be a headache especially for media. That's why it's only for system backups... you don't do that very often.

lukesparksoff · 02-13-2006, 04:25 | posts: 17 | Location: Chicago

Thank all for all the tapedrive info ,and all your help your the best