I was in the same predicament as the OP, with a P3/500 showing it's age with frequent "rebuffering" messages when the machine was under load.
I considered the Atom. It's great little CPU, but I had a difficult time finding single/dual-core Mobo's with more than a couple of SATA connectors. If you only have 2 SATA connectors, then serious RAID is out of the question, and you're stuck w/ mirroring, which constrains your growth options. Are you guys not building redundancy into your libraries? I'd hate to lose a disk and have to rebuild a library. With my library currently at ~1.6TB and growing, I decided on the "go big, or go home" approach and just built the following; - Intel E5200; 45 watt, dual-core CPU - ASUS P5G43T-M Pro Mobo (6 SATA connectors) - 4GB RAM - 4 x Seagate low-power 2.0TB HDDs - Windows Home Server It's certainly more machine than I need right now, but I figure I've got room to grow, plus it can do multi-duty as a torrentslave, HTPC streaming audio/video/pics to my WDTV-live, and (via WHS) I have the option to schedule automatic backups and a host of other administrative chores for my other PCs. I also considered Drobo, Acer Home-Share, HP MediaSmart and other ready-made options, but liked the flexibility of building my own, plus I had a suitable case and other parts lying around. -- apn ------------------------------------------------------------------------ apn's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=35030 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=72985 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
