HD HTPC Partslist

So I settled on the parts list for the new HD HTPC. For the moment it will exist without an actual HD or Blu-Ray drive in it, as I have a Blu-Ray drive in my PS3 and feel no burning desire to spend money on a second one just for the sake of having it. I've been buying Blu-Ray discs so I have no HD discs, so paying a premium for an HD disc drive isn't a high priority either. nevertheless, the unit will be arriving in a few days and we can start assembling it.

Note: these links are to the Newegg site where I purchased them from. One can argue the point that a few bucks could be saved by buying pieces from various shops, but I have a good history with Newegg and that counts for something.

• Motherboard: Abit AN-M2HD Motherboard with native HDMI and video
• AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Windsor3.2Ghz dual core processor
• 2GB of RAM
• LIAN LI PI-V350A Minitower MicroATX case
• Athena Power 400WT power supply
• Assorted minor parts
• One 500GB drive
  
  The case:
  

I looked at a wide range of cases in the form and style of AV equipment. If our equipment were in the theater room, I'd have placed a premium on it's visual fit into the room. But in fact the equipment racks for the theater is actually 2 rooms away in a utility room, so appearance was less critical to me than being able to easily work with the components. Given the relative difficulty of adding extra cards to theater form factor cases, I chose the mini-tower. It will sit on the rack beside our Network Attached Storage device, a 2 TerraByte Buffalo TerraStation Pro 2.

My wife's work is all digital and we need a rock solid backup of everything, so the 2 TB raid 5 array made a lot of sense for us for several reasons. The net yield is approximately 1.4TB after the RAID 5 overhead.

The partslist above isn't bleeding edge in any way. None of the parts (outside of the motherboard) are really hot stuff or super powerful. But for the task desired, they can do the job (or so we hope). We have a variety of extra(meaning old) hard drives lying around, but I kind of hate to build a brand new system on 2 year old hard drives. Instead I just merge the stack of older drives into arrays in one case and add them as more network storage to hold movies for the theater. In a few days we'll know if the idea of a under $600 HD HTPC actually works.