Music Server Project

[PNWAS]

For those of you participating in our music server project. This post will be used to communicate back and forth about the project.

[fork]

I think we should have an initial meeting to help everyone who needs to help assembling and getting their system up and running and a second meeting where we can definitely use Gary and Joe, to setup the OS and the finishing touches. Those of you have already got your server running might want to post a list of hardware, so readers have an idea what kind of components will work well together.

[fork]

Here are the specs on my server:

OS: Windows 7
Motherboard: Super Micro C2SEA
Power Supply: Silverstone Nightjar Fanless
Memory: 4GB DDR3 1066
Display: 58" Samsung by HDMI
Case: GMC Toast
Heatsink: Scythe Ninja
Processor: Intel 2.8, 65W, Dual Core
Thermal Grease: MX-3
Hard Drive: Samsung 1TB F3
Disc Drive: Pioneer 12x Blu-ray burner
Player Software: Foobar
USB Cable: Entreq Konstantain
DAC: Wyred4Sound DAC 2 (24/192)


Misc Details:

* The case interior is sprayed with EMI/RFI coating.

* The system is fanless, except for one fan on the CPU heatsink (because of the Blu-ray processing demand).

* The OS is tweaked from the Black Viper website.

* The PC serves as a music and home theater server. Blu-ray discs can be played from the drive, using the PowerDVD 9 player, but I also have Slysoft software, which can transfer the Blu-ray to the hard drive or a blank disc. 40 Blu-rays takes up 1TB of drive space, so it's not quite practical to store movies on the PC; 3TB drives will be out soon and a RAID server with 2TB drives could store hundreds of discs (with some hardware cost).

* I recommend using FLAC or ALAC, instead of WAV, because WAV does not store the tags in the file, which is a problem with some software. Many people have performed serious blind testing and found no audible difference between the compressed and uncompressed formats. If you can afford a solid state drive, you'll want the extra drive space.

* The memory has an input voltage of 1.5V. Check the specs for your motherboard to make sure it will take the memory you choose; some boards don't take all voltages.

[fork]

Don't buy an SSD right now. Information recently leaked about the new 25nm SSD technology. These will come out at the end of 2010. The capacity will be double, up to 600gb.

http://www.legitreviews.com/news/8792/

[amirm]

There has been formal presentations by Intel/Micron at ISSC on their 25 nm flash development for a while. So the fact that they are coming to market next year is not a big surprise .

[fork]

Yes, I realize the 25nm is not a concept that was revealed last week, but practically, for someone who wants to move to a SSD, knowing the approximate release date of the newer technology takes a lot of the uncertainty out of the decision of whether to wait, so in that respect, the news is important and useful.

Actually, by 2011 can more accurately be stated as during Q4 2010.