Main PC, Home Server, NAS and Media Center

[Pancake]

Long time no see! Thought I could get some ideas for a few new Systems!

Just moved across the world and got myself a decent paying job, so there is no price limit on anything.

My Main PC

This will be used for some gaming, and everything else. It needs to be small though. So I am going to be using my current PC. A ThinkCenter M91P SFF.

2 x 21.5" Dell IPS U2212HM (Keep)
Windows 8 Pro x64 (Keep)
Intel Core i5 2400 (Keep - I could go higher, but I don't need it)
4GB DDR3 (Upgrading to 2 x 8GB Kingston)
500GB Hard Drive (Upgrading to a 512GB Samsung SSD and a 2TB Hard Drive)
Onboard Graphics (Upgrading to a AMD 7750 Low Profile)
No Wireless (Adding a low profile Wireless Card)
Onboard Sound (Adding a Asus Xonar DG PCI)

What do you guys think to the upgrades? Does anyone know if there is a more powerful Low Profile card?

Media Center PC

This needs to be SMALL. And it needs to able to play 1080p clips fine.

I am thinking of a ThinkCenter M92P TINY

Plugged into my Samsung 52" (Keep)
Windows 8 Pro (Keep)
i5 3450 (Keep)
500GB Hard Drive (Replacing with 256GB SSD)
Onboard Graphics (Keep)
Wireless Built in (Keep)
Onboard Sound (Keep, because there is no room for upgrading. This kinda sucks)

Any suggestions for a different very very small PC?

Server/NAS

Now, the question is: Do I have 1 Server with lots of storage and Power, or do I have a small PC/NAS for storage and then a separate Server? To be honest I am not that up on this kind of stuff.

It will need to have atleast 8TB of space. And the Server will need to be able to run a few VM's with no problem. Any ideas for this? It will also be running Plex Media center


Thanks Bros

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

For the media PC,an AMD A10 5700 or the soon to be released A10 6700 would be a better choice than a Core i5 3450. The IGP is far better for media usage,and idle and low load power consumption is very good. Anandtech considers the AMD A10 the best CPU for media usage,if you don't use a discrete graphics card.

With the NAS,I would also go with a Trinity or Richland CPU again,especially consider the A85X mATX motherboards can have 8 SATA 3 ports too and do not cost too much.

[DanceswithUnix]

I have always run a server that doubles as a house NAS, though I am happy configuring a Linux box to handle those sorts of duties.

A uATX AMD FM2 board with 4 RAM slots should take enough ram to run plenty of VMs, and I think FM2 processors have all the modern virtualisation extensions on them.

I presume the VMs are not going to be that demanding? If they are thrashing the hard drives then the media server side might struggle to get its fair share of hard disc throughput.

[Bluecube]

Further to more info on the VMs, I'd recommend an HP Microserver for server/ NAS duties. I have one myself running Linux and Plex Media Server and it's great. 1080p stuff streams no problem at all. I've also used it for a couple of undemanding VMs at one point so you may well be OK there too.

[jim]

A bit out there, perhaps, but have you considered http://www.raspbmc.com/ for the HTPC?

I've been interested for a while, and apparently as long as you don't try to force it to decode DTS streams it can cope fine with high-bitrate 1080p content.

Otherwise, you might want to consider a dedicated box. Depends what you want to do, but some of them may do everything you're interested in. AC Ryan, Boxee, Popcorn Hour are all options.