Case Hell

ntlbell

Hey guys,

I'm having a bit of trouble finding a nice HTPC case.

I was something slim that resembles a DVD player more than a PC, the only problem with this is most of the cases only seem to have room for one 3.5" bay.

I'm looking for something that will hold 4-6 3.5" SATA disks, but doesn't look like a 1980's stereo.

youcancallmeal

ntlbell wrote:

Hey guys,

I'm having a bit of trouble finding a nice HTPC case.

I was something slim that resembles a DVD player more than a PC, the only problem with this is most of the cases only seem to have room for one 3.5" bay.

I'm looking for something that will hold 4-6 3.5" SATA disks, but doesn't look like a 1980's stereo.

Wow I seriously doubt you'll find a small HTPC case with room for 4-6 hard drives. Maybe 3 at most but even then its going to be pretty big.

Thermaltake Bach will take 5 3.5" drives but its a pretty big case, and ugly! Or if you really want to splash out you could go for this case from Zalman, again though its big!

I have an Antec Fusion htpc case which has room for 2 3.5" hard drives. With 500gb hard drives going so cheap these days I find thats more enough storage. You could always look into using external hard drive enclosures?

SouperComputer

I hope you dont plan on this being quiet!

My vote is for a NAS.

ntlbell

SouperComputer wrote:

I hope you dont plan on this being quiet!

My vote is for a NAS.

Yeah, I would like it to be as quiet as possible.

my problem with a NAS is it's another box somewhere, and I find (it could be in my head) that it takes away from the quality of divx's etc if played over the network (they look a bit grainy to me on even a 32")

mossym

ntlbell wrote:

Yeah, I would like it to be as quiet as possible.

my problem with a NAS is it's another box somewhere, and I find (it could be in my head) that it takes away from the quality of divx's etc if played over the network (they look a bit grainy to me on even a 32")

it's in your head..:) ..if the network didn't have enough bandwidth, you'd have dropouts and pauses in the video, not slight quality deterioration

SouperComputer

Quality will in no way, shape or form be affected by a NAS. If you have experienced a drop in quality, there is another variable at play

The problem with running so many drives, aside from the noise they will make (yes, even the quiet ones!) is the cooling you will need to keep them and everything else in the case cool. Four drives put out a lot of heat and a normal, well-ventilated PC case, but in the tight confines of a HTPC case its a recipe for disaster.

subway

divx at 576 x 304 on a 1366 x 768 lcd = grainy.
plus theres the chance a pc is running to the tv at 1024x768 so upscaling and stretching is occuring at both ends.
never mind the zooming in mce and on the tv to get the image to fit the screen and youve got one grainy image.

why do you want so many drives?
surely you could just get 2 1tb drives or a couple of usb enclosures and hide them behind the pc?
noise + heat as mentioned above will become the bane of yourlife.

mossym

subway wrote:

divx at 576 x 304 on a 1366 x 768 lcd = grainy.
plus theres the chance a pc is running to the tv at 1024x768 so upscaling and stretching is occuring at both ends.
never mind the zooming in mce and on the tv to get the image to fit the screen and youve got one grainy image.

why do you want so many drives?
surely you could just get 2 1tb drives or a couple of usb enclosures and hide them behind the pc?
noise + heat as mentioned above will become the bane of yourlife.

that's irrelevant, we're not talking about the playback method, just the storage. IF a pc is connected to the tv, it makes no difference quality wise if the pc is reading the files from a local drive or a nas. if the pc is not getting the data from the nas quick enough it will not make it grainier, it will have drop outs. your point may be vaild, but is nothing to do with a nas affecting image quality

subway

i didnt mention the nas, i gave a number of valid reasons why, particularly with windows mce, there can be graininess in video files on a high res screeen.

L31mr0d

just grab one of these, network it up to one of these and roberts your fathers brother you're sorted *wipes hands off each other and exits left*