HTPC Build--Need thoughts/Advice

[saukriver]

I don't think a laptop drive is needed. You don't get as much space for the money as a 3.5 drive and if you want cool and quiet then I would suggest a SSD drive instead.

I have waited so long for the AMD 240e that I am now exploring SSD drives.

Does it make sense to place a SSD in the same htpc as a 1.5 or 2.0 green storage drive?  Or, to you need to move the storage drive to another place on the network?

Is there a way in Windows to shut down one drive when it is not in use?

Given the the cheapest SSD is around $140, does that really make sense compared to a small HDD?  The ability to place Windows 7 in sleep and how quickly it comes on is attactive.  So, I don't see a practical gain in startup.  Is it worth an extra $100 for--in effect--noise reduction (and possibly airflow)?

[Craig]

For the price SSD's, in my opinion, they are a luxury at this point. A good 3.5" HDD these days is usually very quiet and will suffice. I have 6 HDD's in mine and I don't really hear anything from the box.

You can set the HDD power settings to turn off the HDDs after X number of minutes. I set mine to 5.  My DVD archive drives just spin down unless Sage accesses it to play a movie. It slows things down a bit because the HDD has to spin up but it doesn't take more than a couple seconds. Another thing that slows down due to this is emptying the recycle bin. Seems to work good for me.

[saukriver]

Thanks, Craig, for your prompt reply on SSD.  This subject of using SSDs in HTPCs seems intensely partisan.  My instinct is that those who have spent $140+ on such SSDs defend their investment as super, and those who have not made that investment are more inclined toward your view that this is something they will reevaluate when the price gets closer to the $35-$40 for a small HDD.

Wow: 6 HDDs.

I know that there is a power management option to shut down all drives after inactivity.  But if the operating system drive is in use and the storage drive is not called on for data, does the storage drive stay asleep?  In other words, can one drive by powered down while others are in use. 

[Miller]

I agree that SSD's are a luxury. If you're on a budget then the money is better spent elsewhere. I bought a Seagate 7200.12 1TB drive and it's fast, cool, and very quiet. I noticed a big difference over my old 160 IDE drive.

[Craig]

I don't know specifically what the power state of the inactive HDD is when windows considers it powered down. My guess is that it is in idle status. If you look at the HDD specs. you can usually find power consumption when idle, reading, and writing; or something to that effect. I don't think you will ever get less power consumption than the idle rating unless you put the whole computer in standby. My guess is that Windows Power Settings just monitor the HDD activity and if nothing is accessing the drive then it keeps it in idle state. In my case I have an OS drive, a DVR recording drive, and 4 DVD Archive drives. The 4 DVD archive drives remain idle while my OS drive and DVR recordings drive spin while I'm watching TV recordings. If I'm just surfing the web and nothing is recording then the 5 drives are all idle and just the OS drive is spinning. The HDD's themselves have power saving features in that they have built in firmware that adjust the rate that they need to spin based on read/write demand. WD calls it intelliseek I think.

[saukriver]

Actually, Craig, it appear that WD markets 4 power states:  R/W, idle, standby, and sleep.   Here are specs for a green drive:

Electrical Specifications   
Current Requirements
   Power Dissipation
   Read/Write   5.4 Watts
   Idle   5.4 Watts
   Standby   0.40 Watts
   Sleep   0.40 Watts

(Not sure I understand the power savings of a green drive if the power in idle is the same as R/W.)  Anyway, the question for drives not in use is whether they go to standby or remain in idle.  I search for an hour and could not yet find anything to answer that.

[Craig]

I imagine that they go to the lowest state allowable by the drive. But that is honestly just a guess, but it would make sense. Yet again logic doesn't always prevail.
Although I have no way to test it, i feel that mine do go to the lowest state. I say this because they have to take a couple seconds to spin up and find the file that I want to play, and when I listen with my ear right up to the case I can hear them individually spin up (which ever one is being accessed, not all of them at once)
Bottom line is that they are not all constantly spinning at the same time. They are only spinning when accessed by the OS

[saukriver]

I gave up waiting for the 240e.  Found a 235e being sold on eBay.

To recap, My objectives:

1.  PVR for Clear QAM and analog cable

2.  Migrate to a cablecard tuner to replace a cable STB for analog and encrypted QAM (after cablecard tuners hit mkt).

3.  BD Drive (decided to install)

Current build:

WD Caviar Green 1.5TB --$99 at newegg (it was on sale).

Antec Black Aluminum / Steel Fusion Remote Black Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case - $99 at newegg.

Antec EarthWatts Green EA-380D Green 380W Continuous power ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power ... - $30

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD800AAJS 80GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb--$35--for OS

Patriot G Series ‘Sector 5’ Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333--$80

GIGABYTE GA-MA785GMT-UD2H AM3 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail--$90

Athlon II x2 2.7 Ghz Regor 235e (45W)--$74 (found on ebay)

________________

Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1250.  I intend to use my Comcast box that can record 2 channels at a time.  This hybrid will suffice for analog and dital until I can move to a cablecard tuner.  If the right cablecard tuner emerges, I will
Sell the 1250 on ebay and sub that cablecard tuner in.  $55

(I am not sure i really need a hybrid tuner as a digital tuner would suffice for now.)

OS:  Win7 Home Premium


B-D drive

[Miller]

A couple of thoughts. You need to make sure the 1250 is supported by Windows 7. Since you want to use it for analog (again, not recommended) it might not even be supported for this. In other words Windows 7 might only be able to use it for digital recordings. If you haven't bought it, then a cheap hardware analog card would still be a better choice. (It will also resell better.) A hvr1600/1800, even an old pvr150 (since it's for a short time) would be better. Heck for that matter I would sell you one of my old ATI Theater 550s if you wanted. I just don't think the 1250 is a good idea if it can be avoided.

Thes rest of the system looks fine to me.

[saukriver]

I thought that the Hauppagge 1250 could be used to record both digital and analog.  The Comcast signal is sent in both digital and analog.  I should be able to record the digital signal if it is unencrypted, and for a while the stations for which the analog signal is still being tranmitted should continue to be unencrypted.

But I take your point that the 1250 may not be supported by Windows 7.  There are repeated reviews on newegg.com that say that it works well with Windows7, but it is not certified as compatible.  There is then this review:

The tuner does not include a hardware encoder. If you want to use Windows Media Center, you need a software encoder from Hauppage. This might be fine on a faster system, but on my older computer (which worked great with a WinTV PVR USB2) live TV is jittery and my CPU was at 100%. 

What I was really looking for a digital-only card that was cheap.  Is there a cheaper digital card?  I don't need to record the analog signal.  I need to record both HD and SD digital.  I appreciate the kind offer to sell the pvr 150, but isn't that only analog?

Overall, the reveiws of the 1250 are sketchy on newegg, but the recent reviews are okay.

Maybe I should have gone with the AVerMedia AVerTVHD Duet - PCTV Tuner (A188 - White Box) - OEM.  But I feared that that tuner may not receive digtal SD. 

I could use a tutorial on TV tuners.  Couldn't be more confusing with dual tuners, hybrid tuners, and combo tuners, and . . .  (hopefully) soon cable card tuners.

[Miller]

Here's how I understand it, if you need a box to watch, then you need an analog tuner. Yes those boxes can output analog or digital, but the digital signal does not come over coax, it's only over HDMI/DVI. So while Comcast (or anyone else) may advertise that way, from a pvr point-of-view it doesn't really matter. That's why I've been stressing to you about an analog tuner.

Now if you don't need a cable box, then you can record the digital signal from Comcast's unencrypted QAM or an antenna and be fine with the 1250. For that matter, you can make the 1250 work for analog, but as you/reviewer mentioned, it will take up all your cpu. So that means your computer can't really do anything else during a recording or you lost frames = crappy picture. So the moral is just becasue something is compatible doesn't mean it will work well.

And I understand for your situation this is just temporary which is why you don't want to put out a lot of money now since you'll hopefully switch to cablecard soon, but that's why it might be better to buy something used so that when you're done with it you can resell it and make most of your money back hopefully.

Does that help?

[Miller]

Another thought I had while browsing the web for you. Cablecards have been "promised" for a long time now and while it looks like it's coming soon thanks to Windows 7, you just never know. So maybe it's better to build something that will work well now so you're happy with what you have if the cablecards never come.

Another article: http://hd.engadget.com/2009/12/08/are-cablecard-tuners-for-media-center-sold-out-everywhere/

[saukriver]

Started building this today.  Put together the CPU, mobo, psu, 2 hard drives etc.
 (Don't have the OS yet or the BD drive.)

I clicked on the power.  The 3 fans wiggled back and forth (so they were getting juice).  But they did not spin.

Any thoughts?

[Miller]

I'm assuming they are not blocked. How are they plugged in?

[saukriver]

The 2 fans on the case are plugged into Molex plugs from the PSU.  The CPU fan is plugged into the motherboard CPU fan plug.