HTPC build questions onboard video and HD type

[squidboy]

Please excuse the long post but its been like 3 or 4 years since i have even looked at computer parts and i feel like i'm totally lost.

i'm building a new HTPC server. I was hoping to save a little money by getting a motherboard with HDMI built in thinking it will be hdcp complaint. I assume that anything that has HDMI will be hdcp compliant. Can someone advise. I'm either getting a ceton 6 tuner card or 2 HD homeruns.

Here is the motherboard and processor im thinking of getting
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813130779
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819116991


When it comes to hard drives, my plan is to have a single boot drive and the a separate storage drive for recordings in a raid 1 for redundancy. My current HTPC had a hard drive crash (storage drive and i lost almost all my shows) so i'm currently using a spare WD 2TB green drive. I was looking at the intellipower drives again since that's what the green drives are and i'm not having any issues but they don't actually list the speed of them. i was also looking at the blue drives too but they are 5400 rpm


I was also debating using an SSD for the boot drive but do i really need it. The system will be in a rack in my basement and i don't think i have a need to boot that fast.

Any advise would be apreaciated

[Crash2009]

There is more to SSD than fast boot

[squidboy]

ok so educate me on why i should have one in a htpc

[Crash2009]

ok so educate me on why i should have one in a HTPC

Faster boot you know about all ready.

The truth is you get faster everything. There are no moving parts so its quieter. I would imagine an SSD should produce a little less heat.

Here is the post that convinced me.

http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... 999#p13999

What do you have against using an SSD?

[squidboy]

I skimmed through that thread and i saw someone mentioned they didn't see a difference in performance just using it for basic stuff. all he saw was the faster boot. sound isn't an issue since this new computer is gonna be in a 4u server case mounted in a rack in my basement.

the only thing i have against ssds in the price considering i can use a regular drive i already have vs buying an ssd

[Crash2009]

Use whatever you got in stock is fine. Separate boot drive is a good idea. My only issue was your statement that a SSD is only for fast boot.

[IT Troll]

The motherboard HDMI will be HDCP compliant. I recently built a new HTPC using integrated Intel graphics (Skylake CPU) and HDCP worked fine.

However, I have now added an Nvidia card because I wasn't happy with the on-board graphics. The biggest issue was that the Intel drivers are just a little glitchy and not as polished as the Nvidia ones. Also the placement of the HDMI port on motherboards is generally really bad and can cause fitment problems depending on your case, I/O shield and size of your HDMI cable/connector.

I would also highly recommend an SSD. You only need a small one, 64 - 128 GB, to use as a system drive which can picked up for peanuts. It makes a vast difference to the responsiveness of the whole system and is more reliable than spinning rust. You don't say what software you will be using, but it is likely it will make use of a database of some kind which will really benefit from running on an SSD. My system has a 120GB SSD system drive and then 2 x 3TB HDD for media in a RAID mirror for redundancy.

[volfan6415]

Get an SSD it is worth the money. Everything is faster it is not just boot times that are faster. Anything that has to be stored and read from the hard drive becomes faster.

WMC Databast Cache
Pagefile
Program Files

I would not build any computer, especially one that is a media center where there are constant reads and writes to a database without an SSD. It is the single best upgrade to a computer.

[Scallica]

Get an SSD it is worth the money. Everything is faster it is not just boot times that are faster. Anything that has to be stored and read from the hard drive becomes faster.

WMC Databast Cache
Pagefile
Program Files

I would not build any computer, especially one that is a media center where there are constant reads and writes to a database without an SSD. It is the single best upgrade to a computer.

I agree. I would not build (or buy) any new computer without an SSD boot drive. My laptop came with an entry level SSD, and I didn't think it was fast enough, so I upgraded to a Samsung Pro 850 SSD.

[squidboy]

Ok ok. So Samsung 850 or Intel 535

[kd6icz]

I'm either getting a ceton 6 tuner card or 2 HD homeruns.

I think most would agree that if you have to make one choice or the other here to go with the Prime's. As much as I loved the concept of 6 tuners with one CableCARD, ever since I ditched Ceton my system has been pretty much flawless.

I've used the WD RED drives ever since they were released. Both as stand alone and in RAID 0. So far they've been doing just fine. My 3TB is three years old now and my 18TB three drive RAID 0 is coming up on a year. I hate my crappy RAID controller but the drives are great.

[BonsaiScott]

HTPC server that has to be HDCP compliant? So you serve video over a network from it to other machines and drive a display with it?

I have a dedicated video server which I really like and was very inexpensive:
CPU: AMD Athlon 5350 Kabini Quad-Core 2.05 GHz
MB: ASRock AM1B-ITX AM1 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI Mini ITX
PS: SeaSonic SS-300ET Bronze 300W ATX12V V2.3 80 PLUS BRONZE
Case: Thermaltake Core V1 Extreme Mini ITX Cube Chassis
all $174 from Newegg in 2014, less now.

I used a 128GB SSD I had lying around, and dropped in a pair of 6TB drives in RAID-0.

Runs like a boss, and no matter what I run (Pi, 3D stress tests etc.) I cannot get the from-the-wall total power for the server to exceed 36 watts. Since the processor is 25w TDP, I could have passively cooled the system with a larger heat sink, but since it's in the basement, I didn't bother.

Good 120GB SSDs are cheap, less power and much faster (boot, application launch, temp file storage etc.). Then put all video on big spinning media. It's ridiculous to do anything else today.

HDHomeRun PRIME FTW. Once I get it set up it has been flawless.

[chrisgnv]

I would also highly recommend an SSD. You only need a small one, 64 - 128 GB, to use as a system drive which can picked up for peanuts.

Coming late to this thread but want to add my personal experience. I agree completely with using an SSD as OS but disagree with 64GB. That's too small. I started with a 60GB m.2 SSD because I had one on hand. I put almost nothing on the OS drive. I downloaded a few utilities for use in HTPC maintenance but it's really not much.

It didn't take long for the drive content to hit 90% of capacity. That makes me nervous because you never know what kind of automated download will cause your PC to hit a wall and lock up when you're not looking. Using drive tools to clear unnecessary stuff didn't help much and was only temporary, anyway.

As I type this I'm cloning the OS drive onto a 120GB SSD to swap out for the smaller one. I bought a used (returned, essentially new in box) Samsung from Amazon for relatively cheap. I've used ~120GB SSDs for OS/data drives on laptops and desktops for years without much problem. (I have a server so can offload a lot of stuff.) I'm confident that it will never fill up on my HTPC, considering that I have a spinning HDD for recorded TV.

My .02

[chrisgnv]

I have a dedicated video server which I really like and was very inexpensive ... all $174 from Newegg in 2014, less now.

I'm impressed.

[IT Troll]

I would also highly recommend an SSD. You only need a small one, 64 - 128 GB, to use as a system drive which can picked up for peanuts.

Coming late to this thread but want to add my personal experience. I agree completely with using an SSD as OS but disagree with 64GB. That's too small. I started with a 60GB m.2 SSD because I had one on hand. I put almost nothing on the OS drive. I downloaded a few utilities for use in HTPC maintenance but it's really not much.

It didn't take long for the drive content to hit 90% of capacity. That makes me nervous because you never know what kind of automated download will cause your PC to hit a wall and lock up when you're not looking.

You must have installed some very badly behaved software. A Windows installation plus some HTPC software should happily sit below 30GB. I ran my last system for many years on a 40GB drive. SSDs are much cheaper now so going large is less of a barrier.

However if I was you I would want to know what is chewing up my disk. SpaceSniffer is a nice free utility for visualising disk usage.

[adam1991]

Use whatever you got in stock is fine. Separate boot drive is a good idea. My only issue was your statement that a SSD is only for fast boot.

I would say in context of a WMC HTPC with a second drive used for recording and other storage, fast boot is all you actually get.

It's all about context.

[chrisgnv]

You must have installed some very badly behaved software. A Windows installation plus some HTPC software should happily sit below 30GB. I ran my last system for many years on a 40GB drive. SSDs are much cheaper now so going large is less of a barrier. ... However if I was you I would want to know what is chewing up my disk. SpaceSniffer is a nice free utility for visualising disk usage.

I thought so, too. I've been running Windows Home Server 2011 on a 64 GB SSD for a few years, with no problem. But for the HTPC I installed nothing more than Win 7 Pro, MSE, Firefox, Guide Tool, and MyCustomLogo. Windows updates are automatic.

I'll look into SpaceSniffer but I already swapped out the SDD and don't plan to swap it back. I can use the smaller one in my son's laptop to accelerate the HDD, using Intel's Rapid Storage driver. It will make a big difference.

Thanks for the insight.

[IT Troll]

I thought so, too. I've been running Windows Home Server 2011 on a 64 GB SSD for a few years, with no problem. But for the HTPC I installed nothing more than Win 7 Pro, MSE, Firefox, Guide Tool, and MyCustomLogo. Windows updates are automatic.

Part of it could be Windows 10. Depending on your settings/choices it can download the upgrade installer.

I have Windows 8.1 64-bit (with all updates) plus My Channel Logos XL, Guide Tool, Media Center Themer, Recorded TV HD and VLC installed. I also have my media databases and associated poster art / thumbnails on the system drive. Total drive usage 21 GB. So my current 120 GB SSD really is overkill!