Request build review - Media Server

[JanxSpirit]

Primary goal is lots of redundant storage for photos and home videos. I also want to be able to stream Internet video directly out of HDMI, stream photos/videos to a PS3 and rip DVD/BDs.

I'll also use it for my own projects - running web servers, database servers etc, under little to no load.

I'll be running Ubuntu or some flavor thereof on it. No interest in running Windows, so if you know of any Linux issues I'll have, I'd appreciate the heads-up.

I put this list together. Any comments welcome on where I may have overkill, or whatever. Thanks!

nMEDIAPC Black Aluminum / Acrylic / Steel HTPC 5000B Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case

Gigabyte Intel Core i7/ Core i5/ Core i3/ LGA 1156/ Intel H57/ 4DDR3-2200+/ATI CrossFireX/ HDMI/ USB3.0/ Raid Micro ATX Motherboard GA-H57M-USB3

Intel Core i3-540 or 550

2 - Western Digital 2TB green Drives

Crucial CT2KIT25664BA1339 4GB 2GBx2 240-pin PC3-10600 DIMM DDR3 Memory KIT

OCZ OCZ550FTY Fatal1ty Series 550W Power Supply

Cheers!

 

[Dangman]

Ditch the PSU as it is pretty much crap. Go for this quality PSU instead
$70 - Seasonic S12II 520 Bronze 520W PSU

Go for the i3 540.

 

[450]

Danny Bui, are the WD green drives still good? I think I read something about WD green drives in the storage forum, but I don't remember if it was positive or negative in terms of reliability.

 

[Dangman]

Danny Bui, are the WD green drives still good? I think I read something about WD green drives in the storage forum, but I don't remember if it was positive or negative in terms of reliability.

The green drives are still good for this use case. You probably read the threads about the green drives being crap for true hardware RAID. But since the OP is using linux and I don't see a true hardware RAID controller in his setup, the OP should be fine with those green drives.

 

[JanxSpirit]

Thanks for the feedback - I'll swap out the power supply. I actually thought it might be too much power and I could do with a smaller one - had trouble sizing that given that I'd like to be able to add internal and USB drives in the future.

As far as the WD green drives, if there's a more reliable alternative for SATA drives, I'm all ears. I'd really like some robust drives.

I should have mentioned initially that I would like this machine to be as low power as possible - at least when it's inactive. I saw the green drives mentioned in some builds and I don't care about the lower speeds, so I figured they might be a good way to go. As I said, if anyone has alternative recommendations, I'd appreciate it.

Cheers!

 

[koolaidkitten]

I have 4 2TB WD green drives.*and a bunch of 750s* They been working just fine for over a year. Only 1 of the 750s died. It just happened to also be the most used drive in the whole setup. I called it my scratch disk cause all my torrents go to that drive first before I seperate them and test them before they get sent to their appropriate home. It worked hard 24hrs a day 7 days a week. I didn't fault it at all for just happening to die. 1 out of 12 aint bad in my book.
Just recently picked up 2 2TB Samsung drives due to them being on sale on new egg for like 75$ recently and a perfect egg rating. They are humming along nicely in a Raid0 for the last 3 weeks.