Build Recommendations - Media Server

[philman14]

Ok so I need a machine that is primarily going to be used as a glorified fileserver that transcodes HD videos (preferably in real-time). I have multiple PS3's, iPhones and Xboxes in the same apartment and I want to be able to stream my media to all of them. Tversity I know can do this, but I'm curious to see what other people think as far which processors are the best for this? From what I've read, higher clock-speed as opposed to dual-core is preferred for this task mainly because of TVersity's utilizations.

I'm also curious to hear people's experience with software RAID. I'm planning on running RAID 5 and want something that I can expand. I currently have 4x 7200RPM 32MB cache 1TB drives (a couple of F3 spinpoints and 2 others that I can't remember) and want to be able to add more 1TB drives as I go along. I would prefer hardware RAID just so I don't lose everything if my OS goes down but it just gets so expensive especially with OCE, and if you want 8-12 SATA ports.

My other option is to just have the computer hooked straight up to the TV, but I don't like the fact that I have to deal with a Windows/computer interface. I also have a Harmony One remote which I would like to utilize to its full potential.

So my questions are:
1) Best processors for transcoding HD (1080p) content
2) Best processors for watching HD (1080p) content
3) If you're watching 1080p stuff, is a dedicated graphics card better? Are there codecs to offload that processing onto the graphics card?
4) Good software RAID solutions or stay away in general? Anybody with experience with mdadm and samba (Linux) or software RAID with Windows?
5) Is there anything better than TVersity for getting media to all of my devices with a decent interface?
6) I am somewhat limited on the TVersity side to using Windows at least for transcoding with that. Is there anything equivalent to TVersity for Linux?
7) I saw a bunch of people talking about WHS. Is this best-suited for my needs?


TLDR; Need a good mediaserver. What do you recommend?

Edit: for networking, I have Gigabit ethernet so I shouldn't see any bottlenecks there.

 

[Dangman]

1) Not sure. Will have to do more research here

2) The CPU doesn't really matter that much for watching HD content if you have onboard or dedicated graphics that's capable of offloading the decoding of HD content. So you could have a cheap Sempron CPU and that would still be enough for 1080P content if paired with the right onboard or dedicated graphics.

3) Depends on whether or not you want bitstreamed audio via HDMI or will be fine with 2.1, 5.1, or 7.1 audio via HDMI. But the answer is generally not really due to the following:
- If you're going with the Core i3 CPU series, the onboard graphics of the Core i3 CPUs can offload the decoding of HD content just as well as any dedicated video card and provides bitstreamed audio via HDMI
- If you're fine with 7.1 audio, 5.1 audio, or even 2.1 audio, then the onboard graphics of the ATI 787G (2.1 to 5.1 depending on the mobo), 880G (2.1 to 5.1 depending on the mobo), 890G (2.1 to 5.1 depending on the mobo), Nvidia 8200, 8300, 9300, 9400 (7.1 audio).

4) Best bet for software RAID solutions would either be Linux MDADM software RAID or FreeBSD's ZFS RAID. Widnows software RAID isn't that good compared to those two options.

5) Not sure

6) Not sure

7) WHS is a good choice for storage. There's a 120 day trial of WHS if you want to try it out for yourself. I also recommend reading the FAQ:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1390750

Also, just because you say you have a gigabit ethernet doesn't mean you won't see bottlenecks: Many onboard gigabit NICs don't provide full gigabit performance. In addition, some gigabit switches or routers don't have full on jumbo frames supports which furthers limits network transfer speeds. So you gotta factor those two in.