[Dandeman321]

So I've been using my old xbox as a media pc for a good 6 years now and I love it. Unfortunately it has taken a turn for the worse and it seems as though it's dying Instead of trying to repair it, I plan on backing up everything I have on it and transferring it to a media pc/external drive. I'm planning on using this tutorial: http://lifehacker.com/5391308/build-a-si...-the-cheap

What I loved about my xbox was that I could unhook two cables and bring it along to my friends/girlfriend's house. These are nice and small and only need two cables, HDMI and power, so that works there. Thing is, I have a lot of media. Way more than the 160Gb that the Acer Aspire Revo has. Unfortunately I won't be able to bring everything I have with me, unless I bring an external hard drive or upgrade the internal hard drive. I have a 1Tb hard drive installed in the xbox so what I'm thinking about doing is backing up my media, reformatting my hard drive, inserting it into an external enclosure, and using that as USB extra storage.

Will this all work? Will a 1Tb external work ok with the Revo? I'm also planning on upgrading the RAM. Any tips or suggestions? Thanks in advance.

[Hannes The Hun]

upgrading the RAM (or for that matter, any internal components) is a bit tricky as acer designed the case to not be opened anymore by the customer. I managed to switch the hard disk to a fast one (which has a huge impact on system performance!) but the case has some scratches now, was a pain in the ass

apart from that, your plan might just work!

[Dandeman321]

Awesome! Do you mean it's hard to upgrade because it requires you to void the warranty to remove the cover and get to the screws/insides? I may be ok with that. I would like to upgrade the HD to something bigger, like a 320Gb or something, but don't they cost a lot? since they have to be the 2.5" Sata laptop hard drives?

Also, is this a good model to use? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as..._-83103228
or would it be worth it to buy a better one?

[robweber]

I upgraded the RAM on my revo, it wasn't too bad. You do kind of feel like you are breaking it when taking the cover off since you have to pry it apart, but it comes off easily enough. The RAM is clearly visible when you open it too, not like trying to remove the hard drive. If you are nervous there are a bunch of youtube videos that show you how to take the case apart without damaging it.

As far as using the external hd. Try getting an enclosure with eSata rather than USB to get the fastest speed possible. not sure about HD but standard def shouldn't be a problem via the external.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ayQOyTEWRw

[Dandeman321]

Sweet! Thanks for the link! So you're saying I should store any HD movies on the internal HD to aide in playback speed? and an eSATA harddrive enclosure would be faster? Sounds good to me! Now if I install XBMC the way the tutorial shows, how does the 1Tb external need to be formatted? when I reformat it for the external enclosure?

[robweber]

Sweet! Thanks for the link! So you're saying I should store any HD movies on the internal HD to aide in playback speed? and an eSATA harddrive enclosure would be faster? Sounds good to me! Now if I install XBMC the way the tutorial shows, how does the 1Tb external need to be formatted? when I reformat it for the external enclosure?

I guess I'm really not sure about HD via an external, just never tried. eSata will be faster than USB 2.0 though so I would go with that for the connection type. I would just try to play an HD movie and see if it can pull from the external and get it across the wire fast enough.

If you follow the tutorial and use XBMC live you'll want your hard drive to be formatted for linux. I use Ubuntu (which I believe XBMC Live is based on) on my mythtv box and I've always just used the default 'ext3' filesystem. I know there are others though, some claim to better handle large video files. Ext3 has never given me any problems though. You should be able to format the drive via the command line on the XBMC live box if you don't have access to another linux machine. you could probably also download an ubuntu cd, put your 1TB drive into a PC and then boot up the ubuntu live disk. You could format it through that as well, might be more work though.

hope some of this helps get you started. google searches might fill in the rest

[Dandeman321]

Yeah, that all makes sense. So in review, the 1Tb need to be formatted with linux? Ext3 may work? Since the build of XBMC in the tutorial is based off of linux? I have an eeepc with dual boot eeebuntu and XP. I would be able to use that to format the HD but I don't believe the eeepc has the eSata port I'd need... Maybe I could just install linux onto the Nettop, format the HD, then install the XBMC...

[robweber]

did you buy the enclosure yet? several of them will have eSata as well as USB connectors. You could use USB to connect to your other computer and do the formating. I did a quick search on newegg and found having both seems to be rather common.

other than that it sounds like you have everything pretty well figured out. Good luck.

[Dandeman321]

No, I haven't bought anything yet. Now that I think about it... I would need both USB and eSATA since I'm going to be connecting the external to my regular computer to put files on there. Also, I found a case that accepts both IDE and SATA HDs. This will come in useful since I have another 320Gb HD that would come in very handy when I'm backing up my current files on my xbox before taking the 1TB out of there and reformatting it. Also, any recommendation for remotes?

[robweber]

Personally I use this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6880121001

However I am using Windows as the OS and running XBMC on top of it. I see there is a page on the wiki about remotes, you could probably find a decent one that will work with Live on there. It kind of sounds like any decent MCE remote will work, or can be programmed to work.

http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Remote_Control_Reviews

[Dandeman321]

Alright, cool. This all looks good. Thanks for all your help! I'll check out remotes and find one.

[Dandeman321]

Just thought of something. Glad I did before I bought a memory upgrade. I upgraded my memory on my eeepc when I first bought it, so I got an extra 1Gb unused. I checked the specs on that revo and it had this:

Memory
Memory Capacity 1GB DDR2
Memory Slot (Total):2
Memory Slot (Available):1

That says it has 1Gb stock, and one open slot, correct? Think I could just pop in my unused RAM from my eeepc??

[robweber]

Maybe. While the revo probably does have one open slot you'll need to make sure your space is the correct type (DDR2) and the correct size. The revos take 'laptop memory' (not sure what the correct term is here) so it is not a standard PC memory stick. I have no idea what the eeepcs take, although I would wager it is just regular laptop memory.

It is probably a safe bet that it will work. Worst case is that it doesn't and you have to order 1GB of memory. You'd still have a working computer that you could get setup in the meantime and just install the memory when it arrives. It will probably take you the 2-3 days it takes to ship just to get everything configured how you want it anyway.

[Dandeman321]

The eeepc is a small netbook and I'm pretty sure it uses the same type of memory. It's smaller than the standard laptop memory, DDR.