SpacemanSpiff2000 wrote:And

[quote=SpacemanSpiff2000]

And just to throw another option out there for you, have you considered Windows Home Server 2011? Yes, it would mean paying MS, but the price is now only $50-$60 and it can offer a lot more functionality such as taking care of your backup strategy, housing an InfiniTV (which I know you’re looking to get) to share amongst multiple HTPCs, file server duties, remote access to all your PCs, audio and video serving and transcoding on the fly when you are away from home, etc.

I’m still considering, yes. Does that make things like the above (that I want) so much easier than a free option?

Also, I never considered putting the Ceton in the NAS, so far away from the TV, but (as it happens) a lot closer to the router. I just assumed it had to be in my HTPC right by the TV. Any other considerations to account for there?

Though if it does what my HTPC now does, that makes me feel like it negates the $700 I just spent on the HTPC, reducing it to an extender and disc player, and I should have just bought a standalone Bluray player. 🙁

[/quote]

WHS2011 can act as a file server + more. If you want a RAID under WHS, you can do that. It also gives you benefits as I mentioned before. It should be fast considering it is essentially a special version of Server 2008 R2. If you are more comfortable configuring and working with Windows, then it probably could be considered easier to use.

The primary reason you might want to house the InfiniTV in a WHS box other than your HTPC being SFF (which I know your chassis is not) is because it will likely be always on and if you want to have multiple HTPCs accessing the tuners, you can configure that and let your HTPCs sleep without adding any additional delays to the startup process. It’s certainly not a requirement to network the InfiniTV. It also doesn’t make your HTPC an extender. Content is still recorded to the HTPC( s ).