[Sirus7264]

Okay guys i am in the process of building a new HTPC obviously running XBMC as the Operating system.
here are some of the specs i am looking twords if you guys have some ideas to toss out there for me it would be nice

-Motherboard: Prefered to use Gigabyte motherboards i found one on tiger direct that seemed like it would handle the job on tigerdirect (GA-Z77MX-D3H INTELL 7 SERIES.)
-RAM- I would like to stick with corsair due to never having any kind of issue in this category
-Cooling system-I need something silent i was thinking maybe a large flow lower speed
-Blu ray rom- a trayless blu ray rom that will run my movies smooth and fast.
-Video Card- You guys can duke it out on this APU, Radeion, Nvidea
-Sound Card- I dont think its going to be possible but i would like this system to run like an amp also but im not sure exactly what this system would require to do that type of thing if i really need to i guess i can use an amp but my main goal is to have the system itself handle the actual speakers but definately 7.1
-1xSDD A smaller fast speed Solid state to instant boot XBMC and operate only the the Operating system. I have been told there are ways to make it boot even faster with the use of Page files and what not i have no experience in that category if you got some ideas for improving the speed of bootup toss them out
-2xHDD 4 terabytes each in Raid together This is to store the massive ammount of blu ray movies i have and will continue buying in the future.
-Case This is the tricky part i do not want a huge case but i want it to look stylish with a touchscreen on the top of it with all the right curves after i know the height of all the components i am getting for it i will have a friend draw a blu print for it and i will have a company custom make the case. I live in japan atm but next year will be back in the states if you have some ideas for companies that do custom cases based on blu prints for the case company names would be appretiated.
Chipset- I am aiming for an I5 or I7 if the cost isnt to huge a difference from the I5 to move everything pretty smoothly for now and in the future.
Accessories- Lights and what not that would make it look fun and interesting is always nice haha of course not required but everyone likes a little flare to go with their systems.

Like i said this system is a system i plan to use for a very long time not many updates required I would like it to also be able to support the new 4k resolution if possible for future use. any ideas you have for this would be greatly appretiated. I have not yet set an exact price on this system yet or a definate time of completion. I am not in a rush and would like some good feedback.

[GortWillSaveUs]

On the cooling system, I'd use the Scythe BIG SHURIKEN 2 Rev B. 5-Heatpipe Universal Low Profile CPU Cooler or the
Cooler Master GeminII M4 - CPU Cooler with 4 Direct Contact Heat Pipes.
Both work awesomely (is that even a word) to keep the CPU cool,...while being virtually silent doing so.

On the BDROM,..I wasn't sure if you wanted standard size or slim slot load drive,..so either of these would work: DIGISTOR 5.25" Blu-ray Burner Slot-Load SATA Drive or the Panasonic Slim Internal Blu-ray Burner SATA Slot Load Drive

I'd recommend not going any smaller than a 60GB SSD. Sure you can load the OS on a smaller one,..but sometimes there are files that get copied to the default drive and can build up unexpectedly,...like fanart. Anywho,..I'd get the OCZ Technology 60 GB Vertex Plus Optimized Edition SATA II 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive

Now, the 4TB drive,...I'd get 2 of the Seagate Desktop HDD 4 TB 5900RPM SATA 6Gb/s NCQ 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive Great price on these. Sure, it's 5900RPM,...but if you jump up to 7200RPM,..expect to pay almost double.

The only problem I have with your statement about the 2-4TB drive,..is that you're saying you want to set them up in a RAID array. Well,...if you're thinking of mirroring them,..then you basically are left with 4TB. If you mean any other form of RAID such as RAID 5,..you'll need more drives. I recommend using them so you get 8TB,...that's a lot of space. If you're looking for redendancy,..then research on unRaid,..see my tag below for my unRaid box with pictures.

[Sirus7264]

With the 2x 4 terabyte drives in raid i was going to do them in a Raid 0 so that i can improve the speed and just make a single drive useing 2 drives giving me 8 terabytes with more read write speed. For backups i will more than likely buy some external drives to backup all data that i put on my drives (aka all the movies and subtitle files since this is all the drives will be used for). as for the 5900 RPM it does have a lot of benefits for the system such as keeping it cooler running at a lower speed but you lose a little bit of performance how much heat do you think i am adding if i go for the 7200 RPM and if i am in a Raid0 setup reading only movies in blu ray format. (havnt decided if i am going to compress my blu ray files yet or not i need to research a bit more before making that final decicion to see what i lose on compression. I hear it it next to nothing if done properly). Overall what are the pros and cons with 5900 rpm and 7200 rpm heat, price, read/write speeds, and drive expected life.

Next up with the cooler's do you know the amount of cooling and dimentions of these coolers? From what i read i think the GeminII M4 is probably the better cooler to choose?

The blu-ray drives you picked i like the slim slot load but how are panasonic blu ray drives these day? What other companies are there out there that may make more stable drives I'm usually a sony component guy but lately some sony products ive bought have been ify so i may be willing to move to another company. I love the size of this slim slot load drive though i could make some nice case adjustment with a drive of this size.

Lastly the SSD maybe that may be a little slow for the read and write speed what do you think about this one instead http://www.amazon.com/OCZ-Technology-2-5...pd_sim_e_4. Only thing i would be curious about is how is the heat on this drive compared to the other one. It had about 500,000 hours more of life time before estimated failure reads at about 540mbs/s.

I really appretiate your feedback if you have some more im always up for it im on a ship so my messages back are a bit slower cause of the internet times that we can use and our location. Btw for the HDDs i can get a 7200 rpm here in japan for about the same price thats the only reason i really ask about the heat and what not. Keep me updated if possible more input is always nice thanks guys.