I'm going to be starting work on my dream HTPC project next month which is codenamed "Kawaii Ami-chan" after Ami Mizuno from "Sailor Moon" (plus it was the nickname of an ex-girlfriend of mine who was a big fan of the character and looked a lot like her) and this is the spec that I've come up with although it's been changed time and time again since I came up with it a few months back. 1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 256GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive 1 x Hitachi Deskstar 7K4000 4TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM 1 x SilverStone Grandia GD08 Home Theatre Server Case 1 x Corsair 750W CX Builder Series Fully Modular 80+ Bronze Certified PSU 1 x ASUS GeForce GTX 650Ti 1 x Pioneer BDR-207EBK 12x Blu-Ray Writer 1 x Foam Silencing Kit for Silverstone GD08 1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler 1 x ASRock Z77 OC Formula Motherboard 1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) 1 x ASUS Xonar DGX Soundcard 1 x Be quiet! 120mm Silent Wings 2 Case Fan 1 x Logitech G510 Keyboard 1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis XMP X2 Grey Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) - 1600Mhz (PC3-12800) OS-wise, I'll be using a free copy of Windows 8 Pro which I'm getting through my university via Microsoft Dreamspark as a IT student. I'll be mainly using it for playing HD video via Bluray as well as fansubs of my favorite anime and Japanese/Korean dramas as well as playing Asian MMO's such as Phantasy Star Online 2 (when it comes out in English later this year), Ragnarok Online, Perfect World International and Battle of the Immortals and connecting it to my Samsung UE32D5520 LED TV.
Looks like a nice build to me, but I'm seriously allergic to Hitachi Deskstar HDDs, so I'd recommend, probably, a WD disc (is 4Tb a deal-breaker?)
Fine build right there, but as said above, just change the HDD. Seagates are also good, or Samsung - are Spinpoints still on the market?
@mrbungle And your point is? Yes, I named it after both the nickname of an ex-girlfriend of mine as well as one of my favorite anime and manga characters, is there a problem with that? @jinq-sea and Pliqu3011 I decided to go with the Hitachi 4TB because of the storage capacity as well as the price which I've seen them go for sale at, plus the reviews for the WD equivalent basically say that version isn't as good as the Hitachi one. I decided that I wanted to have 4TB hard drives in my build for storage purposes and also because I didn't want the hassle of using a NAS just for storing media and wasting extra electricity running one.
No worries - I've just had LOTS of Hitachi disks fail over the years, both personally and for various clients (back when I was an IT consultant!) - I've affectionately known DeskStar discs as 'DeathStars' for many years now! But - entirely up to you
Ah, I see. I never knew they had a reputation like that, although I'm surprised that more companies aren't making 3.5" 4TB drives for computers and that with the exception of Hitachi, the others that have brought ones out are charging more PLUS don't seem to be good value compared to the DeskStar version.
I've always found them cheaper, but less good in terms of quality/reliability. I've known of a few Seagate discs being fritzed on delivery recently too, but would honestly recommend spending the extra few ££ for reliability. In general, with HDDs (and IT gear in general), a few extra £ often results in much greater quality.
