I’ve decided to spend my tax return on a pair of new media systems and a projector. Here’s what I’m looking at so far: Projector: Epson 705HD.
- It’s a nice inexpensive projector that has been getting rave reviews. It will be perfect for our living room.
Media Server: For the living room – running the projector
- Mythbuntu front and back ends
- Will also run rtorrent, rtgui, file services, and the MPD music server.
- Core i3 530 @ 2.93GHZ
- 2gb DDR3 1600 RAM
- Gigabyte GA-H57M-USB3 micro atx motherboard. It is tiny and has HDMI output from the i3 AND raid5 onboard. Shwing!
- 4 x Seagate Barracuda LP 5900.12 1.5 TB drives in a RAID 5 for a total of 4.5 TB of storage
- nMEDIAPC Red Wood HTPC 8000 ATX Media Center Case (simply beautiful!)
- Should use ~100 watts total power.
Media Client: For the bedroom – running a 22” monitor (eventually replaced with a 37” TV)
- Mythbuntu front-end only
- Zotac IONITX F-E – Dual core Atom/NVidia ION platform
- 2 GB DDR2 800 RAM
- Whatever 2.5” drive I have laying around. Probably a 40 or 80gb from a broken laptop I have laying around.
- Antec ISK 300-65 case. About the size of an old-school external CD drive.
- Should use ~25 watts total power.
I’ll document the build as I progress – I should be starting in about 3 weeks. 🙂 The machines that these are replacing are currently VERY dated and I expect I’ll end up almost eliminating ambient noise in the living room, and should reduce our power usage to about 1/4. Woo-hoo!!!
