Hardware Recommendation

[calgarychris]

Hi,

I'm looking to build a second server and wanted to run the following past you folks for recommendations. I will note that the use case is a 2 adult household, using the box primarily as a media centre, with potentially some streaming to iPad in the future via Plex. I don't know if this is overkill - my current box is an Asus AMD E350-I that's worked fine but is 92% full.

Option 1
MBD-X9SCM-F-O
Xeon E3-1240V2
4 x 8GB 1600 DDR3 Samsung (M391B1G73QH0-YK0)
6 x 4TB Toshiba MC04ACA in RaidZ2
Corsair RM450
Lian-Li PC-A04

vs.
MBD-X10SLM+-F-O
Xeon E3-1231V3
4 x 8GB 1600 DDR3 Samsung (M391B1G73QH0-YK0)
6 x 4TB Toshiba MC04ACA in RaidZ2
Corsair RM450
Lian-Li PC-A04
edit: This option prices up about $10 cheaper

Given that my needs are (I think) relatively insignificant, should I be looking at the new Atom processors instead of the above? The two builds above are at the upper limit of what I want to spend and there's nothing in it for Sata DOMs or an SSD. I looked at the Crucial memory, but it came out more expensive than the Samsung when buying from Superbiiz.

Any advice appreciated.
Thanks

 

[hansmuff]

Consider this combo on newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.2293442

A 1231v3 plus x10sl7-f for $472 is a pretty good price.

Regarding Atom, I would not put that into a media center type build. There are times where you need the machine to transcode (convert to different formats for tablets/phones or other viewing configurations, or just transcode sound) where the Atom will be way weaker than a Xeon 1231 class chip.

 

[marbus90]

if OP wants to upgrade to 12 HDDs in the next 3 years, it's a good choice. Otherwise: forget about X9 hardware and go for X10.

16GB RAM are totally fine for ~13TiB of usable storage - even 20+ are acceptable, no need to go overboard with that yet.

For 6 HDDs the Fractal Define Mini is a nice, quieter choice.

 

[calgarychris]

Thanks guys - is the CPU overkill? Perhaps a Pentium instead?

Thanks for the tip on the Fractal - unfortunately I think the missus likes the look of the PC-354 now, so I might lose the battle. The Fractal looks like it's a nice quiet box though!