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Introduction

This is the second part of my brainstorming which should lead to building a HTPC server. If you missed the first part, its available right here.

After I decided what kind of HTPC I was looking for, I started crawling the Internet trying to figure out what would be the best hardware. This post will try to expose and explain the decisions I made. As of today, I’m waiting for all those parts to be delivered.

CPU and motherboard

I had a look at both AMD and Intel CPUs. It was clear to me that standard desktop CPUs were not gonna fit my needs as all of them need a fan for cooling. Also the power consumption, while pretty low on some models, still one order of magnitude above what I was really looking for: 35W sounds too much for me. I was looking for a laptop grade power consumption: something in the 15-20W range.

And then I remembered my good old Samsung NC10 netbook, running a 1.6GHz Atom CPU. I went to the Intel website and found the Atom line specifications. What a surprise when I realized that the most powerful CPU in the Atom series, the D525, had a maximum TDP of 13W!

All I needed was to find a desktop format motherboard running this Atom D525. Luckily, finding a suitable motherboard was very quick: ASuSTeK AT5IONT-I.

Pro:

• Low power consumption
• Fanless
• nVidia ION2 (supports VDPAU) integrated graphics
• HDMI output
• No onboard DC converter (which is most likely to fail first)

Cons:

• Only 2 SATA channels
• Expensive

Memory

This part was tricky as ASuSTeK is handling the versioning of the motherboard’s documentation very poorly. You can find a RAM modules QVL on the website, in the support section, but this one is not applicable for the shipped motherboards. The QVL is kept up to date with the latest BIOS revision (316 by the time I’m writing this), but the shipped items are running an older version of the firmware (312). This lead to a situation where you have a RAM module which would work with an updated BIOS, but no way to actually update it as you can’t boot without the RAM modules.

I had to look in a few forums to find which kind of RAM modules I should buy: one Kingston KVR1066D3S7/1G and one Kingston KVR1066D3S7/2G. Why not twice the same module? Because the 1GB one is needed to update the BIOS (to version 316) of the motherboard in order to add support for the second one… Anyway, the NM10 chipset doesn’t support dual channel, so there would be no point in having twice the same module, and I feel like 3GB of RAM is enough for this kind of use.

Power supply unit

I don’t have to buy this part as I have a Antec EarthWatt 500W laying around from a previous computer. It should be more than enough to power the motherboard and a few hard disks.

This power supply unit is 80Plus certified, which means it has an energy efficiency around 80%. That’s pretty important to have a good PSU for servers running 24/7, and for me because it will reduce the energy cost a little (that’s what they call « environmentally friendly« , right?).

PS: this picture isn’t mine (was selfishly stolen from Google Image), thus the UK plugs.

Case

Choosing the right case was slightly more complicated. As the HTPC is supposed to lay on the floor of my living room, its design has to be acceptable according to my girlfriend. This specific point is probably the most complex (NP complete I’d say) due to my girlfriend being, well… a girl. I’ll save both your time and mine and avoid describing our numerous talks on this subject.

However I still able to explain the technical details I was interested in. First of all, the case has to be mini-ITX compatible so the motherboard will fit, and be able to handle ATX power supplies. The second requirement is the number of hard disk slots. I want to use my HTPC as a NAS, so I need the case to handle at least 4 storage drives, plus one system drive.

I have to admit that the choice of a case was pretty complicated. Don’t ask me why, but cases for HTPC are very expensive compared to standard cases for workstation computers. As I don’t have to buy a PSU, I figured I could spend a little money in the case, so I went for a Lian-Li one. More precisely, a PC-V354R one. Most of the considerations were purely technical, so I’ll just list the pros and cons here.

Pros:

• Lot of integrated fans (2x12cm on the front + 1x14cm on the top)
• 7×3″1/2 slots + 1×5″1/2 slot
• Anti-vibrations system on the 3″1/3 slots.
• 100% aluminium, implying a decent cooling

Cons:

• Red light on front fans
• Heavy
• Expensive

The future

I’ll start building the HTPC as soon as I receive the shipment from my usual online store. I’ll be using a spare 500GB SATA hard disk as system drive, as I know its very quiet. I also bought a cheap SATA Blu-Ray reader so I’ll be able to borrow some movies or series from friends.

The first thing I’ll do will be to flash the motherboard to the BIOS latest revision. Then I’ll disable the onboard HD audio soundcard as I won’t be using it: I’ll use the nVidia’s HDMI sound output instead. I don’t need 2 soundcards in a HTPC setup.

I won’t buy all the storage drives right now as the current setup is pretty expensive already, plus I’ll need an additional 4 ports SATA card. I’m thinking about getting 4x2TB hard drives and a cheap PCI-Express 1-4x SATA controller. I don’t need any kind of hardware RAID as I’m planning to set up ZFS on those drives.

Software stack

I had a quick look over the different alternatives I could use for an HTPC software. First of all, I don’t want to run Windows. I’m not some kind of open-source freak, but I like to have my servers running GNU/Linux because of the ease of administration (as long as you know what you’re doing). From what I understood, the most widely spread HTPC softwares are:

• XBMC: a nice piece of software specificaly designed to turn any computer into a HTPC. Its available on most platforms and has a good support on most GNU/Linux distributions.
• MythTV: a well-known application designed to build a HTPC with a DVB role. I won’t use any DVB card as I don’t like watching TV.
• GeeXBox: I didn’t give a try to this option as its not just an application, but rather a whole GNU/Linux distribution. I don’t like the idea to have a specific distribution which is likely unable to serve any other role than standard HTPC.
• LinuxMCE: at first, it seems like a decent alternative. But then I realized it was much more than just a HTPC software: LinuxMCE is able to handle complete home automation, including, lights, VoIP, etc. It sounds a little bit too much for me.
• Boxee: this one is based on XBMC. It was my first choice, but I had to disgard it after I found out about the poor support. There is almost no community working on Boxee, and the company behind it seems to be be lacking some manpower.

I decided to use XBMC in combination with Ubuntu Server. Both have decent support, and I know how to handle Debian-based distributions already. In fact, I’m managing GNU/Linux servers for years, especialy Gentoo and Debian distributions, so I won’t need to learn anything to set up the base system.