[Chessyman]

Many thanks for the provided info!

[fricigrill]

Hi,

First of all, thanks a lot for the post, and for the photos. Its good to see such a detailed report.
I am planning to build the a similar NAS/HTPC kombo, but probably with Intel i5-3470T (with 35W TDP) since it has AES-NI to support a full system encryption HW acceleration. (Unfortunately I dont know yet for sure whether Ubuntu would support that, I hope so.)

However I thinking about:
- Streacom FC5 EVO OD (~240€)
- HD-Plex H10.SODD (~230€)
Both have place for 2*3.5" + Micro-ATX/Mini-ITX + Slim OD
I dont see the difference. I cannot really deceide. Any opinion to that?

Can you please tell me why have you choosen the Streacom FC10? What were your aspects?
Thanks!
Greetings also from Munich! Pinakothek Rulez, haha!

[PatrickVogeli]

Nice build! About the heat issue in the menu, that's known, and it's fine. The CPU uses less power to decode 1080p H264 movies than to render the interface.. sounds crazy eh?

You could have a look at enabling dirty regions. Even though it is now enabled by default, the default setting is to treat the whole screen as a dirty region. Changing that to a more aggressive setting may help. Unfortunately I am at work now and don't have a link, but I can post by setting when I'm at home again (8 hours to go! jaja)

[binwiederda]

@fricigrill: To be honest when I just looked at the specs of the FC5 I was quite surprised. My main reason for the FC10 was that it can hold the amount of disks I wanted (i.e. two 3.5" disks and one 2.5" disk -- it can hold more disks, but that's all I needed). Apparently, the FC5 also has enough room for two 3.5" disks and a 2.5" disk. So either the specs changed (*cough*), or I just overlooked that.

Anyhow -- even though the FC5 would apparently have done it as well, I believe that in a completely fanless system (especially if you're planning an i5), more "beathing room" is better. But that's up to you of course.

@PatrickVogeli: Thanks! I read a lot about the 60fps-menu-issue and the dirty regions solution, but I recall that it didn't quite do the trick (long time ago, can't remember exactly). But that doesn't matter anymore, because even if I leave the box on in the menu, it doesn't overheat. The temperature is a bit higher, that all ...

By the way, there are a few updates on the temperatures I added to my blog post about this build in March:

Update March ’13: Occasionally, the CPU temperature goes over 60°C now, but only when XBMC idles in the menu at 60 frames per second. It never ever happens in other situations.

I also did a bit more stress testing. When using aircrack-ng to crack Wifi passwords, the temperature reaches about 66°C after 5 minutes of 100% load in all four cores, and even goes as high as 71°C after 15 minutes of uninterrupted stress testing.

After stopping the stress test, the CPU temperature immediately falls back to 55°C, and then slowly sinks back to 50°C after 5 minutes, and to 46°C after 10 minutes

[Baswazz]

Cool review. Thx for sharing and fun to read.

[binwiederda]

Another fun fact: Until a week ago, the machine was up and running for 89 days without rebooting or turning it off. A power failure in my house finally brought it down -- no UPS unfortunately ...

[binwiederda]

For those of you who are interested. I also published this post on my blog -- with a few additional measurements and explanations: http://blog.philippheckel.com/2013/01/27...fc10-xbmc/

I hope it's okay to post this here. :-D

[htpcnas]

Hi binwiederda,

Thank you very much for posting about your brilliant HTPC/NAS. I only joined today after seeing how you solved your problem. I'm also looking for a solution, but to a slightly different problem and thought you or someone else might be able to advice.

My Current Setup at Home is:-

BEDROOM/OFFICE:-
1 x PC - used for gaming/video-editing etc

LIVING ROOM:-
1 x HTPC - used by kids for school and for watching 1080p movies as it's connected via HDMI to a Sony Bravia LCD TV and Sony Amp via optical lead running from PC (But the pc is now broke and needs replacing!)

LOUNGE:-
1 x 4 port Virgin Media Router, which provides 60mb broadband to the house
1 x Samsung ES6710 Smart TV
1 x PS3

WIRELESS DEVICES:-
Android Mobile Phones

PLEASE NOTE: The PC's and the Samsung Smart TV are all linked via ethernet to the Virgin Broadband Router.


In order to help you understand the layout, here is a link to a diagram showing my current setup at home:-

http://postimg.org/image/wf9w8xqxd/full/


Now since the Living room HTPC is broke, I desperately want to use this opportunity to create some sort of a CENTRAL STORAGE/SHARING/DISTRIBUTION SOLUTION, where myself and my family can access/stream photos, HD videos and access other files.

BUT the kids still need a basic pc for their school homework and general browsing.

What can you recommend?


Thank You

PS: Please give ALL your suggestions, even if means changing the whole layout!

[binwiederda]

To be perfectly honest, I don't really see the problem:

The living room PC should act as the HTPC (as it did before, right?) and/or a NAS. It should be connected via Ethernet to the router, and via HDMI to the TV. That means that in the living room, you will be able to use XBMC on your TV (just like I and so many others do). As a central storage solution, you should just install a Samba server on your HTPC so that you can access it from your other devices.

Now as for the upstairs PC and the mobile devices, you can install a DLNA server (such as PS3 Media Server) on your HTPC. If you want to watch any of the content from the HTPC, you can simply browse and watch the videos using a DLNA-client -- those are included in Android phones (e.g. Samsung AllShare) as well as in most Smart TVs.

Now as for the general browsing of the downstairs PC: if your HTPC is connected to the TV via HDMI, that's probably not the setup you wish for your kids to do their homework on... I tend to suggest a different PC for that, but I'm not sure. Maybe it's possible to connect two displays on the HTPC, one via HDMI (TV) and another one as a monitor...

Sorry, not really a solution, just thoughts. I hope it helps a bit.

[htpcnas]

The current HTPC is broke and needs replacing. This is my opportunity to build/buy a NAS which can be dedicated to being on 24/7 and able to share movies. Having a PC on all the time is very costly and I'd rather that I buy/build an energy efficient NAS and a basic/nettop pc. Yes, the living room tv is connected to the HTPC, but it's not ideal because if one person wants to work on the pc and the other wants to watch movies, they can't do that as it slows it down. Having a dedicated NAS would solve this issue.

Here is what I can think of:-

1. Build/Buy a cheap PC (Only for office purposes and general web browsing etc)
2. Build/Buy a cheap NAS (Needs to be efficient and able to stream at least two 1080p movies)
3. Buy a dedicated media player such as WDTV Live or Raspberry Pi (Giving me the portability of taking it to my friend's house whenever I want).

My budget for the above items should not exceed £600. The Nas is the priority.

PLEASE NOTE: I don't mind buying second hand components if it saves me the money!