[skyking376]

I think I am having a “blonde moment”?

I am building this (http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=124856). Going to put Win 7 on it (Because of Netflix) and Unraid. I haven’t played with unraid but have been reading for the last few weeks.

As the parts are starting to arrive and before I make a mistake how do I actually make unraid work?

I will have 4 drives total to start. One is the SSD for fast booting, and other 3 are all 1TB. I am sensing that I will have to buy a bigger 2TB drive within the week?

I am assuming this:

1) Install Win 7 on this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6820148441)
2) do something fancy to make unraid work (need guidance here)
3) install XBMC on top of Win 7 SSD
4) start to “add sources” in XBMC from other drives
5) verify everything worked out like I planned

I must have misunderstood some things with unraid. I am to understand that you have to BOOT from a thumb drive to Unraid so it can find all drives, set parity drive, etc…

Then what order does win 7 come in?

Thanks for all the help.

[Harro]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I do believe you have some thing confused. What you need is another computer for XBMC.

Unraid is a media storage server or NAS (Network Storage Server), meaning it will hold all types of files (music, video, pictures, personal backups,etc) on the hard drives. It will protect them by having a parity drive in case one of your drives in the server (case) goes bad. The operating system (UNRAID) is mounted on a USB stick. Now there are other programs that can and will run off the same USB stick along with UNRAID but Win 7 is not one of them. I have not heard of XBMC and UNRAID running on the same box but I could be wrong.

Eskro...seriously, You da man! I am group #5 from your list (http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?p=8...post843683)

I am pretty much going straight from the small compact case build he created (http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=109453). I must have missed where this build stated which "group" it was classified as?

If you are in group 5 then you would need to through Eskro's list of parts that would give you what
Group #5 has
* HDTV possess HDMI ports
* wants to play SD movies (DivX, XviD)
* wants to play DVD movies
* wants to play 720P movies
* wants to play 1080P movies
* wants to stream 1080P Hulu content
* wants to stream 1080P Netflix movies (Windows only)

HTPC = Home Theater Personal Computer. Which is group 5

So you have most of the parts for an UNRAID server assuming you have gotten the parts so you say in this thread. This will make a great UNRAID server but not a HTPC.

You will need to build another computer for the HTPC for it to take all the media from your UNRAID server through your network and display it flawlessly in XBMC on a Win 7 platform.
I would suggest this from Eskro's build list
You do have a SSD drive which would give you a start on the HTPC if you decide to go the route of 2 seperate computers or building one computer and housing all your drives in that , along with win 7 and xbmc. But then the parts you already have would be shelved.

[Kirky99]

Or, take a look a FlexRAID which will run on top of Win7. Will probably do what you're thinking.

I can't suggest using a file server as a HTPC though, but some people do it and it works out quite well.