High end HTPC / Nas / Surviallance build

I'll take a stab and play devil's advocate and see if your choices hold up. (doesn't look super bad to me )

First - The CPU is certainly overkill. But you know it so I won't beat you up on that. Plus you seem like your getting a good price and you can afford it. 3770k is a beasty CPU.
Might I ask how much your going to pay ???

I own a 2600k and a 3570k in my HTPC. My old HTPC was a G630. I have a G860 in my media server. My office PC is a G620 and a 2500k. I am pretty certain your 3770k choice is way overkill.

Are you limited to only that CPU? because you will not give up anything noticeable at all with a 3570k.

Also, Since your going higher end you might want to consider a real server CPU like a Xeon - It would be a better choice if you have this available. You can do much more like Virualize and such....
It doesn't have to cost more $$$ and you won't give up any performance. But - If you plan to make a real server it's a better choice IMO.
Usually when people use home PC parts they are making a cheap media server- (sub $100 CPU)

The motherboard is nice. But it is not cheap. Your probably not going to overclock a server CPU. You might wan to consider a cheaper motherboard, and add on INTEL LAN card. Otherwise an ASUS or SUPERMICRO real server board with DUAL INTEL LAN built in would better match a Xeon CPU.. and be about the same price (if available to you)

Case is a nice case.

Your RAM and PSU are not major areas of concern but you might like a real server board with ECC Memory to prevent errors over the consumer stuff without error correction.

Normally this is not my advice but given your "high end" and your parts choices I think going in the direction of real server with real server parts makes sense over using enthusiast level gaming parts.






I hate your HDD choice. I have one of those. I am RMA it for second time. Every Green drive I have has had some error at some point. In contrast- the Seagate 7200.14 (I have 10) have been much better. Not a single issue. Blazing fast read and writes speeds. Just way better than the green 3TB for a lower cost per GB. There is a good 60MB/sec difference in read and write speed between a 7200.14 and a WG EARX GREEN in real world use.

If energy saving is your choice- you'd be better off with a RED 3TB over that green. It does not use intelliparking- and should prove more reliable long term in a 24/7 server application. They also come with longer warranty and recomendation from the MFG for your intended purpose. The green comes with neither.

Seagate 3TB is cheapest cost per GB and they are pretty good on heat/noise/energy being a modern 3TB design (newer than a WD green 3TB) so both a RED or a SEAGATE would be better.

If your looking for more reliability and better energy profile - THE RED IS BETTER THAN THE GREEN. If your looking for INCREASED PERFORMANCE and VALUE the SEAGATE would take the top pick- you will sacrifice a bit of heat for the lower price and higher performance (7200rpm vs 5400 rpm the major reason) . But a seagate only hits 90 degrees surface temp in testing and a green or red is about 86 if I remember....


Also- your SSD!!!!!. I want to bite my tongue... but I can not.

Your better off with a newer designed SSD IMO. That M4 is two years old and long in the tooth. Crucial is not more reliable than most of the "good" newer designs- and it not cheaper either. So you'll get a slower older drive in that M4 for the same cost and less warranty. Makes no sense to me. Not that the M4 is slow.. is not. But it's not the fastest, and it has less warranty.

Someone will jump into this thread in 30 seconds calling me out (probably defending their own purchase decision) and say there is little real world difference between the slower M4 and a faster newer/better SSD like a SAMSUNG/PLEXTOR/VERTEX4 but your going with a proposed build self labeled "high end" including Z77 ASUS and 3770K and Corsair DDR- so I don't think the M4 fits well. It did back in 2011 when everyone was afraid of OCZ and sandforce controllers.

In 2013 The plextor M5/M5PRO and also the Samsung 840/840PRO and the OCZ VERTEX4/VECTOR all offer additional features and performance over the M4, and longer warranty. Crucial holds no advantage what-so-ever in reliability as all of these drives are about the same. That's a common area crucial supporters try to claim but is totally false. All 7 the drives I listed are great and reliable (M4 included). Once that area is a tie score I think you'll find all the other factors supporting a choice in the others over the M4.

All three MFG and all 6 model lines offer increased performance, newer controller and firmware designs and some have better NAND inside.

I'd chose any of those 6 drives over an M4 in less than .000001 tenth of a second without any hesitation at all knowing I have chosen a superior performing SSD.

So..


YES- You should split the HTPC and the server from each other. It's a way better idea IMO.
YES- You should go RED over GREEN (or SEAGATE)
YES- CHANGE OUT SSD. PSU was ok- but lots of other good choices too. Antec 620 NEO was $29 the other day... Rosewill make a really nice 80+ gold with sleeved cables and is 15% off with coupon code. Just get a good deal on a good PSU.
YES- and NO. RAM is RAM in a server... if your not overclocking and gaming any 8GB kit should do. In terms of a server a server motherboard with ECC ram is probably your best choice but I use a Z77 Asrock motherboard with 1600mhz G.Skill ram so I am the pot calling the kettle black... lol.


I have my server set up with flexraid. Are you going the same route ???

I would not recommend a Red or a Green drive for 24/7 video surveillance with 7-8 cameras. For that, you should really use something like the WD AV-GP or WD AV-25. You can use one for a dedicated drive for the cameras and a Red/Green for other storage.

Typical Mfusick and rhetoric.

This is just one person's personal opinion and experience so take it at what its worth. There are dozens of avs users using thousands of green drives with no issues at all. If you can get the green drives for $20+ less then they are just fine. With that being said the Seagate 3TB usually are one of the best bare drive deals on a daily basis.

Also, no idea why he continues to quote "performance" of storage drives in a HTPC forum.

Red costs basically the same... is basically the same performance/energy - is longer warranty and application specific purposed.

Seagate is higher performance- but I was pretty clear in offering two choices- one being performance/value and other being RED over green.

I left it up to him to decide if he wanted a best value/performance ratio in the Seagate or the longer warranty and application specific purpose RED that has 5400rpm and other "green" benefits while being better suited for same relative cost.

Don't put words in my mouth I never said he needed the performance. I just pointed out it existed as an option and alternative.

My sole intention was to indicate that my opinion is GREEN is a poor choice. This based on many factors including my personal bad experiences, myriad of issues I read on other forums where people don't love them as much as you.
The head parking issue, the crashed head issue... the performance hit.... the fact they actually use MORE POWER than RED... the less warranty...... I could go on and on..

Unless they are more than $20 cheaper I see no point in recommending a green drive.

Since he is going to be using as a server.. the MFG (WD) even recommends the RED and not the GREEN for his purpose.

Assassin,

Do you ever notice you stick up for GREEN 100% of the time... but we only battle on this issue in server threads ???

I've never said GREEN drives are not a great basic storage drive for a HTPC or a plain old desktop. For normal use... and normal installations and simple storage duties it's great.

I just think for 24/7 use or higher volume use it's going to deliver a shorter life expectancy. If you using a software raid that does a snapshot daily and the server is going to run 24/7 and serve multiple clients the workload is not a good match for a green.


Greens belong in simple desktops and inside simple HTPCs only. They are not a good performance option and they are not a good server option. That's my opinion and I am sticking to it. If you don't want to believe my opinion then take Western Digital's opinion on it. They agree.

NOTE: I have 4 GREEN drives in my current server.

You're entitled to your opinion but what evidence do you have to say that Green's are bad for servers?

He has no objective evidence. And no actual data.

But he's full of opinion and will quickly dismiss yours while promoting his own as gospel.

Quite frankly its just exhausting having this conversation ad nauseam and having to constantly correct misinformation.

Greens will park the heads after 8 seconds of inactivity by default. Depending on your use, this can result in loading and unloading the heads far more often then is recommended, resulting in premature failure. WD released an application to change the parking from 8 seconds to between 30 seconds and 5 minutes, or disable the unloading all together. If you have a green drive and hear a metallic click, that's the heads unloading. The parking issue can also cause a delay when first accessing it after it was parked.

The drives aren't enterprise drives by any mean, but aside from the parking issue I don't know of any other issue that make them bad for HT or similar consumer storage servers.

Boy, after today, I am thinking I need to go remove all my SSDs from my HTPCs and all my WD Green drives from my server.

With everything so delicate, near end of life and going away unsupported any moment maybe it's time just to hang up the HTPC hobby altogether and get some Comcast STBs back. Of course, those crashed every 6 months and I have to wait for some guy to come replace them.

I guess I'll just read a book. Though, someone had to kill a tree for that book. Probably got the ink from China...

Also don't forget that your book will slow down a lot as it gets full. So be sure to pace yourself.

Funny, I slow down as I get full too.

$30 is big difference for RED vs GREEN.

I'd be tempted to take a green for $30 even though it uses more energy, has long term reliability endurance concerns/ shorter warranty.

Or.. Go Seagate and enjoy the 7200 rpm advantage. It won't cost $30 more in electricity for sure.

You'll be fine with all three. Personally cost per GB always is biggest factor to me...

I find most HDDs are about same reliability regardless of brand or model. They all fail at some point so I always save my cash to replace when needed.

This was a good

This was great explanation btw^

I sum up with cliff notes:

You can use green drives in servers but its against the mfg recommendation and intended purpose. I've done it as have many here. It's usually done because green drives had been available cheap and red drives didn't exist yet. Today both have changed making them less ideal choice.

I would use your current 3770s(or get a 3570) as a server and then use your old i3 as the htpc only working as a htpc(not trascoding for Plex). The server will stay on all the time and you will just turn on the HTPC when you want to watch something on it.

Doing this you could get a case that would allow future upgrades.

you can transcode fine on an i3

As the OP stated:

My current HTPC is a i3-2100T with a DH61AG board and 64 gb SSD and it's simply not strong enough to stream HD channels to other computers.

You sure it is not internet speed ? Or something else? I have a G860 3.0ghz that is basically an i3 2100 and it works for me. Do you have additional load on your CPU?

Mine is 8GB and DDR3 1600mhz on Z77. But I don't see that as a big deal.

Over internet it's crap- but that is my upload speeds not the CPU limits.

You're streaming to other computers?? Without considering the idea of transcoding, a direct "serve" would not be limited by your 2100T

As others have said it will transcode just fine (but how many clients and headroom and everyone likes an i5 mentality will prevail in this thread)

But to say it's limiting your HTPC's ability to "serve" media is absurd. There HAS to be something wrong with your network or the interface your reading from, it's not the i3 and an i7 extreme isn't going to fix the unresolved issue

I am going to agree with this.

I used my desktop to run plex. (2600k i7 @4.5ghz /16GB DDR3) I ran it this way for months before I uninstalled plex from my desktop and installed it on my server. My original server was a modest G630 on an Asrock H61. It would stream or "serve" all content without issues. It would even transcode resolutions for tablets and smart phones. I could easily transcode a 1080p bluray rip that was 25GB and send it to my iphone4 at the lower resolution over wifi. It looked great. The transcoding was so that the resolution was more appropriate to my iphone screen- and also the signal was small enough to be sent over wifi. A full 1080p would not travel over wifi- but the lower 720p would fine. I watched many movies on my iphone.

It works flawless inside my house.

As soon as I try over 3G or even wifi outside my home the quality dropped big time. I realized it was the upload speed of my comcast cable internet as the limiting factor.

Inside my home it all worked great. I have since upgraded my server from the G630 to the G860- and the motherboard to a Z77. I could have gone more but I saw no need. The 3.0Ghz G860 worked fine and I knew it would.

I have a 3570k inside my main HTPC. I have an i7 in my desktop. I've owned every 1155 socket CPU or built with it.

Trust me- something else is wrong. i3 can serve and even transcode locally just fine. Perhaps if you had other stuff going on at the time it might be an issue but a single stream transcode is not a problem at all for a 3.0ghz dual core 1155 Sandy chip.

My 860 is basically a 2100 i3 with only HD graphics and quicksync disabled. That's what I use in my server.

He's using the i3 as a htpc and running Plex. I have no trouble believing that while playing back media the i3 has trouble with transcoding another movie at the same time. Especially if you want good quality.

So, your DVB-S and DVB-C cards don't have hardware encoders?

DVB-C2 DVB-S2(mpeg-4 AVC)?

If this is true then everything you are looking to do might push an i7-3770 even. Encode multiple SD/HD DVB-S/DVB-C streams, transcode with Plex and record 7-8 IP cameras at the same time is asking a lot of a single machine. I wouldn't even attempt to have this be your htpc also.

The i7-3770s is at most twice as powerful as the i3-2100. If you never transcode with Plex at the same time as you are recording/watching multiple shows at the same time then you might be fine.

Hardware encoders are great.

Edit: Bad information.
Edited by macks - 2/6/13 at 11:26am

Digital tuner cards do not include hardware encoders. Hardware encoders are used by analog tuners and capture devices to encode the analog video and audio to a digital format and this step is not required by digital tuners. The streams received by a digital tuner are already encoded (MPEG 2/4) so they just pass the already encoded stream.

I'm mistaken. Only the terrestial signals(ATSC, DVB-T) have to deal with hardware encoding.

Any ideas why DVBLink was killing the i3 then?

Edit: Bad information.
Edited by macks - 2/6/13 at 11:27am

The only reason would be software based video decoding is being used, maxing out the processor. Using a hardware accelerated decoder should result in much lower CPU usage.

(ATSC/DVB-T are also digital signals. Analog broadcast standards are NTSC, PAL and SECAM).

Edit: Transcoding is also going to choke on an I3 processor. Definitely not recommended for the the proposed setup.

Well the 3770 is a beast so if it isn't enough there is a different solution to consider.

Edit: I'm wrong.