HTPC Build for 2012-Drive question

J

JOSHSKORN

Limp Gawd
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May 29, 2007
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As the title says, I'm planning on building an HTPC next year. Basically, I plan on ditching all of my STBs in the house and using this HTPC with an InfiniTV 4 Card with a CableCard.

Storage Space - How much? I currently have Verizon FiOS TV and want something that has comparable or more storage space. I would be storing shows in both SD and HD format (preferably HD whenever possible). I read somewhere that the Verizon DVR has a 160 GB hard drive, and I find myself always running out of space. Can someone confirm the size and if my recordings from my chosen card will be the same file size?

SSD vs HDD - What do DVRs currently use? If HDD, how much of a performance gain would I see going to SSD? I don't mind waiting a couple of extra seconds for load time. I just care if it's smooth. My current DVR, whatever type or hard drive it uses, is just fine.

I'm basically waiting for Ivy Bridge to come out because of the improvement on integrated graphics. I also might be able to budget for this machine by then.
 
SSD is a total waste as a recording drive. Too expensive, and you don't need the performance they provide.

DVR's use regular HD's. Some use the WD Greens.

Get yourself a couple of WD Green Drives for TV recordings. You'll be all set, they're plenty fast as recording drives for multiple HD streams at once.
 
I agree with valve, a SSD as a recording drive is a total waste. That being said, an SSD as an operating system drive in a HTPC isn't a bad idea, especially if you use something like MediaBrowser for your front-end. It helps with thumbnail caching and stuff.

Pretty much any regular hard drive would work - I recommend the Samsung F4 2TB drives (I think they're Ecogreen or something now). I also have a WD green drive and have no complaints, but the Samsung seems to have better transfer speeds. Of course, with the hard drive market right now, just get whatever you see on sale...
 
When i upgraded my HTPC with an SSD for the OS drive, it was the best thing i've ever done. I makes the HTPC feel like an appliance instead of a computer that has to "load".

Regarding your HDD storage space. A typical 1 hour tv show will be anywhere from 5GB-11GB in HD depending on the amount of color and movement in the show. Really dark shows will typically be around 6GB, where really colorful shows like Survivor will be closer to 10GB.

You wouldn't really see any performance difference using an SSD to record the shows.
 
I agree with everyone else in regards to an SSD. Use one for the OS. For storing, do you have any network storage available? Or are you planning to keep all media on the HTPC drives?
 
Cod said:
I agree with everyone else in regards to an SSD. Use one for the OS. For storing, do you have any network storage available? Or are you planning to keep all media on the HTPC drives?
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No network storage, yet. That's the other thing. I was looking at this D-Link 685 but over the course of time I decided that this particular unit would not be good for me, apparently it has issues. Maybe the next generation. It would be nice if I could somehow have a NAS for it, but actually I don't know how different that would be than accessing recorded TV from another TV. You're still accessing it from somewhere on your network, just a different IP. I was actually considering that product as a backup server but again, I'll wait for the next generation, if there is one or even something better.
 
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I personally went for the WD Black's for my HTPC, but if anything I would go ahead and get 2 drives and put them in a RAID 0 - you will thank yourself later. My first 2 HTPC's I didnt raid and then the next 3 did RAID 0 - SO WORTH IT!
 
I've never done RAID for any of my PCs and have never had a hard drive failure. I don't see the point. I understand that it's good for backing up, but I've never had a problem with a hard drive failure. I guess I'm lucky. Besides, what's to lose, some TV? Oh big deal. (sarcasm) You can get it online if you need it THAT bad.
 
I guess it depends what the backend for your htpc is. I use XBMC Live on a pretty wimpy Fusion Zotac ZBox and it's running off a Scorpio Black HDD. I put an SSD (Intel G2) in to see if there was any gain, and besides a slightly faster boot it seemed to perform about the same. It's got 2GB of RAM and that's tons for what it does, thumbnails and stuff seem to be instantish either way. I've even run it off a USB stick and it's a little sluggish on there but only on booting, once running it's all the same.
 
JOSHSKORN said:
I've never done RAID for any of my PCs and have never had a hard drive failure. I don't see the point. I understand that it's good for backing up, but I've never had a problem with a hard drive failure. I guess I'm lucky. Besides, what's to lose, some TV? Oh big deal. (sarcasm) You can get it online if you need it THAT bad.
Click to expand...

Might want to do some reading a RAID 0 setup isnt for protecting you from disk failure it is for performance.

True using a single drive might be okay, but knowing how I run I find myself repurposing parts from previous HTPC's every couple years, by doing right the first time you can keep parts like raided HDD's and use them over even if they arent the newest they can at least keep up.

Plus, my having raided disks like that, if you end up with a system that does more than 1 recording you can make sure the system wont freeze up for 10 minutes to load your media player of choice.
 
I stream BR Rips from a gigabit network share RAID5 (Seagate 2tb 5,900rpm drives) and have no issues with lag. I'd say go WD Green or the Seagate Green.

Unless you're doing huge amounts of I/O for video file compression or something like that you won't see any performance increase in going to an SSD.
 
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