Dmitri's HTPC Project
Dmitri Lenna's log of his attempt to build a Home Theater PC or Media PC as it's sometimes called. He plans to describe all the steps he takes, both sucessful and not so successful, so that ohers may learn from his experiences.
High Definition & Disk Space | Tuesday, March 15, 2005 |
I'm not looking at getting a HD Tuner card until I have an HDTV, which may happen some time next year. One would think I should take a look at the amount of disk space recording an HD program would take. However, in 12 months, HD space increases and prices drop, so if I do proceed that route, I will evaluate my disk space requirements then, not now. I don't lack PCI slots on my machine, so adding additional controller cards and drives isn't a problem, so long as the case has places to put them. If my drive space in the case is limited (which it likely will be) then getting a front end that is aware of network drives will be the way to go. Hopefully the front end would be smart enough to keep a large buffer free on the local disk, write what ever it's writing there, then when finished, move the file to the network drive. Not sure if it would need to be smart enough to copy the file locally from a network drive in order to play, but its ability to acknowledge network drives is important.
Did some more price checking on the 320Gb drives, and found another reputable retailer that carries from for $210, which would only be a $0.66/GB. Slightly more attractive, but not much. I'm considering just getting just one of these drives and see how that space suits me. Unfortunately, I don't know how tempermental RAID can be, should I add a like drive later on.
I've noticed a reoccurring theme for me through out this project: going all out vs. building more of a value oriented system. Obviously no one wants to ripped off but I've noticed that I'm obsessing over some silly things. My girlfriend brought up an interesting point: time is money, and while I enjoy doing this research, truthfully, I am spending time doing it and redoing it when I could be making a decision and getting it on with the building. The purpose of this blog was to keep track of the work I have done so I wouldn't be redoing it, and I haven't been very good at keeping track of that info. That is going to change, and as such you will see a good number more posts in the hopes of beginning to start the build in the next couple of weeks.
Did some more price checking on the 320Gb drives, and found another reputable retailer that carries from for $210, which would only be a $0.66/GB. Slightly more attractive, but not much. I'm considering just getting just one of these drives and see how that space suits me. Unfortunately, I don't know how tempermental RAID can be, should I add a like drive later on.
I've noticed a reoccurring theme for me through out this project: going all out vs. building more of a value oriented system. Obviously no one wants to ripped off but I've noticed that I'm obsessing over some silly things. My girlfriend brought up an interesting point: time is money, and while I enjoy doing this research, truthfully, I am spending time doing it and redoing it when I could be making a decision and getting it on with the building. The purpose of this blog was to keep track of the work I have done so I wouldn't be redoing it, and I haven't been very good at keeping track of that info. That is going to change, and as such you will see a good number more posts in the hopes of beginning to start the build in the next couple of weeks.
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