Funny story that leads to a HTPC

[HorrorCosmic]

So, My very old gaming system finally kicked the bucket. My i7-920's motherboard died. but the cpu / ram / everything else works so i've been spending the passed week or so looking for a replacement x58 mobo to sorta salvage it. Couldn't find it and btw, people are insane! 400 USD for an 8 year old mobo is "rickdiculous".... So moving on just earlier today I was cleaning out a closet and found an Asrock z77 Extreme 4 micro-atx mobo still Sealed!...I'm guess it was left over from my transition from the nehalem to ivy...but I received a Haswell and dropped the ivy, i thought i had returned it but not. SO! now! instead of reusing my 920 i'm planning on making a HTPC / big picture gaming computer.

 

So with this: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/K4pdd6 With the CPU going for 98.00 USD on amazon.

 

Now i can't decide on storage and that's where i'm looking for input. I can do with this setup as having the OS and a few games on the SSD and the HDD's in raid 1 redundant since it'll hold my music, movies, and shows. But I hate relying on mechanical storage. it's old and will inherently fail, I was thinking of 4 of the Crucial SSD's in Raid 5 but that will increase the price. So I need some of your opinions on which method to approach this.

 

And I know parts are missing, i'm reusing some components that are no longer listed, they are:

 

Mobo (obviously)

ULTRA X3 1000W full modular PSU

PNY 8GB DDR3 RAM (probably will add another 8)

 

 

 

[RGProductions]

31 minutes ago, HorrorCosmic said:

 

 

You can get a cheap i7 equivalent Xeon on eBay. AND overclock it if you want.

[HorrorCosmic]

12 hours ago, RGProductions said:

You can get a cheap i7 equivalent Xeon on eBay. AND overclock it if you want.

I had completely forgot about a xeon processor. That may be worth looking into

[RGProductions]

17 minutes ago, HorrorCosmic said:

I had completely forgot about a xeon processor. That may be worth looking into

yeah. i7 equivalent for i3 pricing

[Quaker]

How about just 2 SSDs in RAID 1?

What I would recommend would be 2 "red" HDDs in RAID1. Modern HDDs are quite reliable, and that's the whole purpose behind RAID1 anyway.

[HorrorCosmic]

On 12/10/2016 at 11:00 AM, RGProductions said:

yeah. i7 equivalent for i3 pricing

Yeah i'll have to look into that. sadly something came up so i'll have to put this little build on the back burners for now.

 

On 12/10/2016 at 11:00 AM, Quaker said:

How about just 2 SSDs in RAID 1?

What I would recommend would be 2 "red" HDDs in RAID1. Modern HDDs are quite reliable, and that's the whole purpose behind RAID1 anyway.

The SSD's wouldn't really hold anything that i would care to lose, just windows 10 and steam with some games, so that wouldn't justify R1... Maybe R2 in some instances but the HDD would hold all media including completed gaming recordings.

[BenoitWW]

nice salvage! Why the RED drives though. Wouldn't Blue/black be more appropriate?

[HorrorCosmic]

5 hours ago, BenoitWW said:

nice salvage! Why the RED drives though. Wouldn't Blue/black be more appropriate?

From what i've read the WD reds are primarily used for Raids and NAS ( which raids...obviously) because they are designed to run continual usage. Which to me would seem like the better idea if i were making a HTPC that would stay on most of the time and provide media streaming to my other devices.

 

Granted I understand all HDD's are fundamentally the same, i could go with black or blues and virtually not see a difference, but i'm hoping the "continual usage" would also mean longevity in a 100% powered up environment. 

[Quaker]

16 hours ago, HorrorCosmic said:

From what i've read the WD reds are primarily used for Raids and NAS ( which raids...obviously) because they are designed to run continual usage.

There are also differences to do with how the drives handle errors.

[HorrorCosmic]

2 hours ago, Quaker said:

There are also differences to do with how the drives handle errors.

Aye, this as well. On another note i ended up finding a xeon e3 processor. there's one for 45.00 i'm trying to lock down but i have a feeling the price will shoot up once it gets closer to the deadline.

 

Now someone else is selling a fully functional desktop with an e3-1245 v2 . I'm hoping the memory is ECC but if not its still 8 gigs. if its a single stick then my other single stick could suffice (even though i hate mixing ram, its a great price)

 

That would mean:

 

xeon E3-1245v2 3.4GHz

16GB DDR3

1K watt modular ULTRA X3

Substituting my Asrock z77 board for a mini-itx intel board with built in wifi i found for 60.00 USD

Cougar QBX mini-itx case

 

I think I'm going to change my GPU to the GTX 1060, EVGA has a 3GB for 199.00 USD on newegg and since this will play on a 1080 TV i'm sure thats enough to play most of my games at max settings.

 

I'll also have to think of a new storage setup. Maybe WD black 2.5

 

 

 

[Quaker]

Some Xeons require a different "server" chipset.

[HorrorCosmic]

8 hours ago, Quaker said:

Some Xeons require a different "server" chipset.

I want to update on this, i dropped the 1245 and got an e3-1225 v2 for $70 USD. and a mini-itx intel DH77DF for $60 USD. The case for $40 USD. 

 

Now I have an idea for modding to fit 2x3.5" NAS drives by using a SFX-L to free up some room for cables and the additional drive.

 

Now I have to figure out if I want to use ECC or non-ecc. possibly non-ecc, but... part of me wants ECC for the personal data integrity ( already using NAS drives in raid 1, so why not) Also, I may plan on reusing these components in a freeNAS later on when i need to upgrade. (maybe when i get a 4k tv)