Building a Media PC/Network Backup

Shylidi · May 12, 2015

I am building a multi purpose system, intended to quietly sit under the TV, and provide media and game streaming (also light gaming on its own). It will also serve as a network media box, running Kodi (XBMC), and a backup box to all other machines in the house. It will be backing up 7 other machines with a combined storage capacity of 3.5TB.

I am building this because the Dell Precision M4400 I have from a couple years ago is currently serving as an always-on media box, and I have no backup on the network, unfortunately. (Well I do, but I hardly consider the Dimension 8200, with its ancient dying 40GB ATA drives that I salvaged from the basement to be a backup solution. It is more or less just a glorified print server at this point.)

This is the current build list: (http://pcpartpicker.com/p/hLvhrH) the PSU is not likely to change unless using it is the absolute end of the universe, as I already own it!

My budget is ~500 to 550 US Dollars

It will be linked to one monitor, a 1080p Samsung panel.

It will have a wireless mouse and keyboard combo, and a remote.

My logic is this: Install the OS (Windows 7) on the SSD, for speed and great glory. Use the 3 3TB drives in RAID 5, thus achieving redundancy and the capacity to lose a drive, but also maintaining a reasonable storage capacity. Back up all machines to this array about twice a week. I will drop all the media files onto the RAID as well and they will be accessed via Gigabit network. (Because I'm not cool enough for 10 Gigabit.)

I think this build is sufficent for it's intended task, but any ideas are appeciated. Thanks!