Some days..I want to unplug it all

if it was easy, it wouldn't be fun. Why do you think men go bald. So we'll stop pulling out our hair.

This is why I've left whole-home DVR in the hands of Tivo for now and only developed HTPC and clients for movie/tv-downloads/streaming... my wife's TV watching/recording (and by extrapolation my own personal well being) is too sacred to be dependent on my own IT skills!

On the flip side, I had more trouble in one year with the Cable companies DVR than I've had in 10 with any of my HTPCs. I was constantly having to delete programs that I hadn't watched yet because it was reporting 100% full (even though it was only about 35% full) and would not record anything else. Deleting a 1/2 hr program would immediately result in 70% free.

I have a smooth system going using the HTPC in the Family Room / Home Theater. There's only three TV's in my house at present. One is in the kitchen and just doing QAM at present and the other is only connected to a streamer. The Echo is the solution for me as it is doing Whole Home DVR/PVR service quite well. Wishing it would do the streaming better though. I've saved a bundle (pun intended) on doing this and it is working out for me. There's the occasional hiccup but there's the times when the CableCo DVR needs to be rebooted too and it is about the same for me but right now it is saving me $30/month, every month.

As the HTPC was already built and in use when I got the HDHR Prime earlier this year I only consider the cost of the tuner in my calculations. I switched from Uverse to Charter and got a $20/month credit for 6 months. That is $120. With Charter the two DVRs is $30/month beyond programing costs. That is $360. I got the HDHR for $135 and the Echo for $159 in the beta. So my outlay is $194 and my savings is $480. Sort of a no-brainer. That leaves $286 left in my pocket which is basically what I have into the basic HTPC (Less HDD's which could be in a NAS box, but why when I can have a full HTPC instead?!). So I needed to do something for more storage drives in any case so I'll leave that out of it. That $286 saved leaves me $72 shy when purchasing two more Echos at full retail but I will wait until they go on sale and will maybe break even. In the first 6 months I've paid for it all. I plan to add another TV to the mix making it four. Now it is just gravy; plus If I'm running my HTPC and three Echos I will be saving $40 every month on STB's ($5 each *4) and DVR taxes ($20/month). That is pretty substantial and paid for in the initial savings in the first six months of use.

I am not going to unplug it all even if the echo were only an extender for Live/Recorded TV as they pay for themselves.

Sorry to hear you are having issues. Over the years I have found that the number one "issues creator" is heat. As long as you can remove heat from your system you can have very long, error free runs. We are talking years of 24/7 "always on" operation.

As much as I would like a completely silent system, it is just not possible, so throw as many fans as you can, and as long as the system does not sound like a jet on take off, you will be fine.

Edit: Oh and if there are some "mission critical" events, always have spares on hand. You can always snag them up when they are on sale. There are tons of FAR motherboards, memory, cheap hard drives, even Ceton InfiniTV4 was on sale for $129 earlier this year.

Having spares will buy you time to resolve issues if they come up.

Another thing to look for when you buy components are "military grade" electronics. You may not get the latest and the fastest, but it is not needed for a "whole house DVR" but a reliable compoent that is 2-3 years old has probably gone through all of the "birthing pains" and is now a stable procuct at a significantly reduced cost than something that just came out.

FYI, the final firmware for the Echo has not been released into the wild yet. I assume it will be distributed quite soon. For now, the version released on 11/27 is the latest and greatest, but definitely not final.

I don't think the next one will be the "final" one either.

Been there, done that. I feel/understand your pain.