Assassin's Simple/Beginner HTPC Buying Guide - Page 474

Originally Posted by Limp Fox 

NOT overkill IMO. I went with the best I could get at the time and what Assassin recommended. After only a few short months I filled up 4 TB's and had to source more. You'll be ok with 12TB's for a little bit

Originally Posted by Palehorse1 

To anyone still on the fence about a HTPC and building one yourself using these guides,
My wife and I got tired of the bait and switch tactics our cable TV / internet provider kept pulling forcing us to pay for ridiculous packages for the very few shows we were interested in watching so we decided to pull the plug on them for the TV service and go with a combination of over the air, Netflix, and internet TV via a HTPC. We have piles of music CD, DVDs, and Blu Ray discs here and were obviously intrigued by the capability to keep the physical discs safe while we enjoyed their content as often as we liked via Media Browser and WMC. We looked at buying a purpose built HTPC but none really offered the value or specific features we wanted so we looked into building our own. Like you we searched for HTPC build instructions and found this wonderful guide. We read the guide three times to make certain that we understood it and then took the plunge using the Sandybridge instructions. The only changes we made were to use 16gb of ram - by using a huge coupon we had found - and upgrading the CPU to the i5 variant to add the extra cores which have aided us in ripping our music and video discs but speeding up the process. When looking at over three hundred DVD's and nearly a thousand music CDs the additional power to speed those process up were greatly appreciated. We used the 65gb SSD for the primary system drive and three internal 2tb drives for video media storage. I have an external 2tb USB drive here that we are using to keep our music on for the time being but may change that out at a later date.
At first sight when all the parts showed up I was a little disconcerted that maybe I had bitten off more than I could chew but using the guide and other tips from AVS Forum members I got it up and running and installing Windows with ease. I was actually terrified that it had gone too easy and that I had certainly overlooked something or made a grave mistake. My fears abated once I got the Media Browser software installed and got the plugins for WMC added that I wanted to try. I had already started to make copies of our DVDs and storing the output onto another PC in the house so after added the new HTPC to the homegroup and setting the share properties the movies were on the move to their new home.
Obviously we fumbled around a bit as our TV experience had changed but once we found more and more features we really enjoyed our HTPC more and more. We built ours about a year ago using this guide and I can say now that if we were to go back we would suffer considerably as the HTPC just makes sense in so many ways. Eventually we will add a media storage server and build a smaller HTPCs for the master bedroom. When the time comes I fully intend to make use of these guides again as while they were a bit large to take in all in one setting they made the process painless and much more affordable than if we had opted for a pre-built unit or just picked parts that we thought would work out for our needs. With that said, thanks to Assassin and everyone else here that shared their time and knowledge as through you our TV experiences have become more entertaining and much more affordable as well. Doing the math after cutting the cable TV service off and changing our cable internet service to a business account instead of residential - faster speeds and guaranteed uptimes - we broke even five months ago via our purchase invoices and the HTPC is saving us right at around $120.00 every month.
If you are here then you have already recognized the benefits of a HTPC, so go ahead and go for it as I honestly don't see how you will dissapointed. And thanks again to Assassin and all the others that have shared so much with us. I for one, am very grateful.

Originally Posted by pbmpharmacist 


I'd better be OK with 12 TB for a long time. All of my mobo sata ports are used now (4 x 3tb hard drives + samsung SSD + blu-ray writer).

Originally Posted by LastButNotLeast 

I've been watching discussions like this for a while, and I just have to ask:
How much "stuff" do you need to keep forever?!! How many movies have you seen that you're really going to want to watch again?
I have about half of my 5TB filled, and mb adds it up to 75 hours. I have a very few movies that I've moved to a "watched" folder that I may consider rewatching some day, but most get deleted and, eventually, replaced. Which is one of the many things I love about an HTPC.
Granted, we don't have kids, so I don't need tons of Disney stuff (though, I admit, I have a bunch).
With what are you folks filling up 12TB???
Michael

Originally Posted by LastButNotLeast 

I've been watching discussions like this for a while, and I just have to ask:
How much "stuff" do you need to keep forever?!! How many movies have you seen that you're really going to want to watch again?
I have about half of my 5TB filled, and mb adds it up to 75 hours. I have a very few movies that I've moved to a "watched" folder that I may consider rewatching some day, but most get deleted and, eventually, replaced. Which is one of the many things I love about an HTPC.
Granted, we don't have kids, so I don't need tons of Disney stuff (though, I admit, I have a bunch).
With what are you folks filling up 12TB???
Michael

Originally Posted by pbmpharmacist 
Also, I'd like to point out that I do nothing illegal. So no torrents for me, just rips of blu-rays/DVDs that I own.

Originally Posted by azula 

approximately how many BD rips (just the main title) could 1TB contain?

Originally Posted by jeffkro 

I could see people renting a movie and ripping it so they can play in XBMC.

Originally Posted by assassin 

"Let Assassin Help"
My team is hard at work over at our website and I am very happy with what they have created and added. Even if you aren't buying a machine from assassinhtpc and are a beginner you can click on some of the pop-ups and question marks and see some of the things that I recommend or some of my thoughts.
I really like the comment on the i7. Check it out.
Big thanks for Ben and our web designer who have been hard at work on this. Trying to bring HTPC to the masses however possible.
http://assassinhtpc.com/products.php?product_id=4

Originally Posted by kesawi 

I've often asked myself the same question.

Originally Posted by Limp Fox 

Are there others like me?

Originally Posted by Sammy2 

Let's see 25movies * 20GB/movie = 500GB.
At current HDD pricing that is say $50/TB this costs you $25 to keep or $1/movie.
Just think, you can put 25 new movies in the queue if you delete them..

Originally Posted by Taperwood 

I used to be like that. I now have a core collection of about 125 movies and 1000+ CD's that I keep on the hard drives. I assess it every year or so and add to and delete from it as I feel like.
I think eventually discs will go away and everything will be streamed and I'm fine with that. My experiences with Netflix, etc., for video streaming have been very positive and I generally will favor that approach over using my HTPC and other boxes to mainly access local media. It just seems a more elegant way to go about dealing with huge amounts of content. I prefer to let other's handle the storage and for that reason I'm happy to rent DVD's and BDs and stream video rather than buy the discs unless I want to add one to my core collection.
The thing I've noticed with having too much local media is that it removes the joy of anticipation. If I have it on hand, I generally will not watch it because I tell myself I can watch it anytime. That sort of diminishes the experience. As a kid, we waited until the weekend to go see a movie. The anticipation was half the fun. I like having to wait to get movies from Netflix for that very reason. It keeps me looking forward.

Originally Posted by Limp Fox 

I'm the type that still hasn't allowed myself to delete movies from my hard drives. Even if it's a bad movie I keep it. Just like movies I know I will only ever watch maybe one more time if I'm lucky. I say there's at least 25 movies I could delete. I guess there's some thing about turning on WMC and seeing all those titles there. Maybe I just need counseling??? Haha. I do have two children and about 40% of the movies I have are Disney, Pixar, etc....
Are there others like me?

Originally Posted by jeffkro 

I could see people renting a movie and ripping it so they can play in XBMC.