The media server has Windows Home Server 2011 on it. I picked up a new copy for about $45 and it does everything that I want without all of the Windows 7/8 "fluff" and it was cheap.

I then am using a product called FlexRAID to provide software RAID5 and device pooling so that I see everything as a single drive letter. That was about $60. Then, I can always split things up and still have 100% usable data on the drives if I want, (hardware RAID5 spreads things among all of the drives, which is faster for data access, but for a media server the drives send data faster than multiple machines could receive it anyway. Oh, and decent hardware RAID means an add-on card which means more $$$.

I am using MakeMKV to rip the discs (free), and Media Center Master to get all of the images, metadata, trailers, etc plus to do a decent rename of the folders and files to something meaningful. It is also free.

I am still looking at what software I want to run for my HTPC. I've been playing with basic Windows Media Center and Media Browser 3 and I really like MB3, but it is still in beta.

I haven't tried XBMC as it probably won't do what I need for my HTPC. It doesn't handle some of the advanced video processing that I want to do (which requires an add on video card and a decent CPU in the HTPC). However, XBMC is designed for the "quick and dirty, but looks cool with its interface, I sometimes download things via Torrent, and have "less than legal" stuff" kind of crowd. Not saying it is bad, just not geared towards a high end HTPC.

I need to check out J River more as well. Its interface is less desirable, but it is supposed to be fairly rock solid for features.

My first piece of the HTPC came today... The RAM... Can't do much with it.

The case, power supply, video card, and blu-ray drive come on Monday. I am traveling this week and will be picking up the motherboard, CPU, and SSD from Micro Center while I am gone.

Farewell - June 4, 2020