Help With HTPC build

[bob s]

I am preparing to build a new HTPC whose primary storage will be from a 4x2TB disk raid 5 ESata enclosure. I am trying to keep it at around $300 before shipping. Right now my primary HTPC is a full desktop gaming system and I want to offload that to a smaller, more economical system. The specs of what I am looking at so far are below. If anyone has any better options I welcome alternatives.

However, my primary question is will the 150W PSU in the case below handle the workload? Or should I look at a different Case/PSU? I know all too well how important a PSU is but I also want to keep it as economical as possible(ie not putting a 300W PSU on 150W worth of equipment, etc) I am having a hard time finding the headroom of these individual components.

Thanks for any help.

COOLER MASTER Elite 100 RC-100-KKP3-GP (With 150W PSU)
Mushkin Enhanced Essentials 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
Patriot Torqx 2 PT232GS25SSDR 2.5" 32GB SATA II
AMD A6-3500
ASRock A75M FM1 AMD A75
NO DVD/Blu-Ray as I have dedicated players for that.


Total cost of system after shipping $331.

 

[g-unit1111]

Well a couple of things. First the Llano is an excellent choice for an HTPC, no question. However, there's a couple of things. First is that PSU will power nothing, and you never want to use a case with a PSU included anyways as the included PSUs are most of the time flat-out junk.

That SSD is way too small. Even if you're running 2 x 2TB hard drives you have to keep in mind that a Windows install will take up 16GB and that's half your drive there, and even then a 32GB SSD will only be about ~27.5GB formatted and you'll lose a lot of OS functionality including the ability to backup and store large files on a BD-R drive.. If you can try to get a low-cost 64GB drive like the Crucial M4.

Even if you already have a dedicated BD-R player buying an OEM drive like the one from LG wouldn't be such a bad idea because a lot of movie titles have internet exclusive content and that kind of a drive will make things a lot easier. You can always add one later since they're super cheap, but if you don't care about that stuff you can skip that for now.

 

[bob s]

Thanks for your help.

I was looking at the E-350 but from what I have read it seems like the Llano chip is just all around better for a HTPC than the E-350.

Yea i realize integrated PSU's are usually junk, however I was not looking for anything that would power a guzzler like a dedicated GFX card or anything

Secondly I forgot to mention, I will be running Ubuntu not windows so I am looking at more like 5, 6 gigs at most for the OS instead of the 16 W7 requires.

Thanks again for your suggestions