[woowoodengy]

i have been asking some questions in other peoples threads and i know its better to start my own so here it goes.

yes i am a complete noob. i have used XBMC to play video on my mac for over a year now and wanted to jump in the game with a dedicated box. i purchased the Shuttle XS35GT Intel Atom D510 (1.66GHz, Dual Core) Intel Socket BGA559 Intel NM10 Next-generation NVIDIA ION graphics 1 x HDMI Barebone from newegg for $190 on black friday deal and need help with ram and ssd. after i get use to this think i plan on giving it to my daughter and upgrading to a full blown HTPC later down the road.

i was recommended this ssd it's $119 is this a good choice or is it overkill. i may decide to use windows 7 but not sure yet
OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G 2.5" 60GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6820227550

is this a better choice $89
Intel X25-V SSDSA2MP040G2K5 2.5" 40GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...-_-Product


as for ram what is the difference with the 800 and 667? which one should i get.

is this a good choice? $35
CORSAIR 2GB 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Laptop Memory Model VS2GSDS667D
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6820145172

any other recommendations? i would like the most trouble free install since i am not in the best health these days and even though i can figure things out for myself i have a herniated disk and reading pages and pages gets hard on pain meds so any help would be appreciated. thanks guys for the help so far.

[woowoodengy]

wow no response =(

[Vandaahl]

i was recommended this ssd it's $119 is this a good choice or is it overkill. i may decide to use windows 7

I was also gonna buy a ssd for my N330 ION system, but its already fast enough without one. So in my opinion its overkill.

You could try downloading one of the XBMC live cd's to test the linux version.

ps. in the advancedsettings (XML) of xbmc you can turn on hardware acceleration for covers and fanart, which speeds up renderering a lot.

[Carlos ze Dwarf]

Yes the vertex is overkill if the shuttle is only gonna be used as xbmc box. Some would say even the intel is too much and recommend some 30GB hdd (with trim support out of the box). But don't bother really, intel is perfect for this.

For the RAM you won't find any difference between 800 and 667. And even if you took the 800MHz one, chances are it won't even run at that speed because the motherboard might have an issue with it, happens all the time.

[poofyhairguy]

Yes the vertex is overkill if the shuttle is only gonna be used as xbmc box. Some would say even the intel is too much and recommend some 30GB hdd (with trim support out of the box). But don't bother really, intel is perfect for this.

For the RAM you won't find any difference between 800 and 667. And even if you took the 800MHz one, chances are it won't even run at that speed because the motherboard might have an issue with it, happens all the time.

This 100%.

[darkscout]

wow no response =(

Between the hours of 02:21 and 05:00 AM EST, want to gander why?

[Evanrich]

Get an SSD. Even a cheap one will make a speed difference...case in point:

I was using a fujitsu 2.5" 7200 rpm drive for my XBMC box, and it would take around 45 seconds from pushing the power button to being able to use the box.

I swapped in a 16GB 80$ SSD that gets around 4K IOPS and 145MB/sec read speed, and my times were cut in half, down to around 25-30 seconds. I then went with the openelec.tv version of XBMC (totally striped down) and I'm down to around 22-23 seconds. Like I said, this is from pushing the power button, not just loading.

SSD will be a huge speed increase for your box....as stated the ram will make little difference. you can of course get around the startup speed by just using suspend.

[AddictedToMetal]

ps. in the advancedsettings (XML) of xbmc you can turn on hardware acceleration for covers and fanart, which speeds up renderering a lot.

Can you please post the setting or link to documentation?

[aaronb]

Can you please post the setting or link to documentation?

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...hlight=dds

[AddictedToMetal]

Thank you.

[woowoodengy]

thanks for the answers guys. i would love to run the live cd but i think i need the windows 7 installed since i plan on also using the box to run some video server functions for my ipad and iphone.

i currently use my macbook to transcode video for my ipad and iphone4 using airvideo and zumocast. but i have to have my macbook on and open all the time. i figure i can do this with the shuttle and run windows 7 and use it for XBMC when at home. i will be streaming all video from a NAS server.

so is the vertex 2 still overkill or should i go with onyx?

oh and since i have been looking into SSD drives it seams as they can speed up a system. would it make sense to upgrade my macbook (early unibody 13.3 model) with a vertex 2 SSD? would it make a difference? sorry i know this is not a mac forum but maybe someone can chime in here.

Thanks.

[poofyhairguy]

Considering all you are doing on it maybe the Vertex.

[woowoodengy]

i missed the newegg $119 deal but here is a vertex 2 40gig for $105 is that a good deal? do i need more than 40gig?

http://www.buy.com/prod/ocz-vertex-2-2-5...68609.html

or here

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6820227610

[poofyhairguy]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6820227610

Pretty fast drive. Might be small for a Macbook. If you can survive on that little, go for it. I use a 30gb Vertex on my Hackintosh Netbook, but it is a glorified web browser to me. If I had all the iApps installed I would want 60+gb minimum.

For the money, I would rather have this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6820227461

[woowoodengy]

Pretty fast drive. Might be small for a Macbook. If you can survive on that little, go for it. I use a 30gb Vertex on my Hackintosh Netbook, but it is a glorified web browser to me. If I had all the iApps installed I would want 60+gb minimum.

For the money, I would rather have this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6820227461

reading the reviews on newegg it seems the agility drive died on many people running windows 7 and they have now released the agility 2 but its priced more like the vertex 2

Hmmm.....?