Building an HTPC - need Half height PCIe SSD?

[VinceColeman]

SO I am building an HTPC, and the case I want only has half-height PCIe slots.

What is the fastest PCIe SSD that comes in a half-height PCIe form factor?

Also, do I really need an SSD? Or will a plain old SATA drive work just fine with the Ceton 6 cableCARD tuner for DVR and output to my 60"? I would also like to do light gaming, nothing like BF4 though.

Here is the component list so far:

Lian-Li PC-C37B HTPC case
MSI A88XM motherboard
AMD A10-7850K Processor
Mushkin Enhanced Redline 16Gb (4 X 4GB) 994083 memory
Ceton InfiniTV 6 PCIe

Also, what other components would you recommend for this? Like PSU, water cooling or fans?

 

[RealBeast]

You don't really need 16GB of ram, 8GB will do fine. I would use an SSD, which I do on my HTPC builds for the fast start up, but you can get by without it although I am not sure if that board will boot from a 4TB drive. Will you stream to it from a storage array? If not you should add a 3-4TB HDD for storage. I would not water cool a HTPC.

Silverstone makes some very nice SFF modular power supplies, I used them in my HTPC builds. The rear 70mm fan in the Lian-Li should suffice, and you don't want too much fan noise.

 

[Wolfshadw]

You don't really need 16GB of ram, 8GB will do fine

Normally, I'd agree with this, but if the OP intends to re-encode a two-hour 12GB HD movie while still recording other shows, then I'd agree with the 16GB RAM for the build.

As for the SSD, you certainly don't need it and if your HTPC is on 24/7 like mine is, the quick boot time becomes meaningless. However, I would certainly agree with having a smaller OS/Program drive and a larger media storage drive. If fact, I strongly recommend two large storage drives (one as a back up). Trust me. I know from experience. The LAST thing you want to have happen is to lose 2TB of stored programs because you didn't have it backed up anywhere.

-Wolf sends

 

[VinceColeman]

No storage array. So I should simply use the fans supplied with the case? I just don't want it to burn up!

My updated component list is below:

Lian-Li PC-C37B HTPC case
MSI A88XM motherboard
AMD A10-7850K Processor
Mushkin Enhanced Redline 16Gb (4 X 4GB) 994083 memory
Ceton InfiniTV 6 PCIe
Logitech MK710 RF wireless keyboard and mouse
LG Black 16x Blu-Ray BDXL SATA Internal rewriter with 3D Playback, Model BH16NS40
EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 P2 80 PLUS PLATINUM Certified 1000W Active PFC ATX12V v2.31 (220-P2-1000-XR) 10 year warranty
2 x Western Digital Black 4TB HDD's (WD4003FZEX)

But then that still leaves me with the question of what choices I have for a half height PCIe SSD? There are only two 3.5" HDD bays, so I can only pick a PCIe SSD at this point, if I want to put the 4TB drives in a RAID 1 configuration.

Also, do I need that much power supply?

Is the video "card" from the AMD A10-7850K going to be able to handle it's intended usage as output to a 60" 1080p screen through HDMI?

 

[RealBeast]

No you don't need that much power, 500W or so should be more than enough.

The onboard video will work fine for 1080p output to a TV.

I would just use a small regular SSD instead of PCIe.

I've built a number of HTPCs that are similar to yours using a similar case and a single fan always sufficed, just check your temps for a while after the build to see if you need to add another, but I doubt it.

My personal HTPCs are a bit different as they all just play video from an 8 x 3TB RAID 6 array over gigabit Ethernet and the HTPC gets turned on and off like an appliance, and I do all transcoding on much more powerful machines with SSD scratch disks and 32GB ram.

 

[Wolfshadw]

Just use a small 60-80GB HDD/SSD for your OS/Program drive (again, if this is going to be on 24/7, don't bother with an SSD). Use the second 3.5" drive bay for your media storage and get another identical drive for "off-site" storage. Sorry, I should have clarified that in my earlier post. You don't want to use RAID as the sole backup solution. A motherboard failure or power supply failure that takes out a drive or motherboard will still leave you with no backup. The backup 3-4TB drive should reside in a secondary, networked system.

Also, I agree with RealBeast in that a 500watt PSU (from a quality vendor) is more than sufficient for your needs. As for cooling, I used an NMediaPC 200BA case with only two rear 80mm cooling fans and that was sufficient for my HTPC. I would say, at a minimum, have one intake and one exhaust with your case (it appears to come with that) and you should be fine. You can always add more later if need be.

-Wolf sends

 

[VinceColeman]

Just placed my orders. I still need to get a large HDD and the Ceton InfiniTV 6 PCIe. Here is what I have:

MSI A88XM Motherboard
AMD A10-7850 Kaveri
G-Skill Trident X series 32GB (PC19200)
Plextor M6e Black Edition PX-128M6e-BK Half-Height, Half-Length PCIe 2.0 x2
Corsair HX850i Power Supply
BH16NS40 Blu-ray Disc Rewriter (3D support)
Lian-Li PC-C37B HTPC case
Windows 8.1 Pro - Full Retail Version
Logitech MK710 Wireless Desktop Mouse and Keyboard Combo

Now I also have an external HD, 2TB. Would this work well with the setup, or should I have a larger internal HDD as well?

I got the larger power supply since it has a 0-RPM feature when it is under about 60% load. I figured it might stay off most of the time.

The SSD was on sale and I got a second one free with purchase.

So any tips on how I should assemble this, avoid pitfalls?