All In One HTPC Hard Drive

All In One HTPC Hard Drive

There are a few options to discuss about hard drives. You’ll need to decide whether or not you want your system files and media on the same partition, different partitions, or on different drives completely. By having your system files and media on separate drives, you make it easy to do system restores without worrying about your media. Additionally, you can run a faster drive for your system files such as a SSD to increase system responsiveness.

If you choose to have your system files and media files on the same drive. You simply need to pick the largest drive possible, right now you best choice would be either a 4TB or 3TB. Since your system and media files are on the same drive, I recommend a 7200 RPM drive to help insure your system will be as snappy as possible. Most people have their own favorite hard drive company, but here are a few of my recommendations:

NOTE: Due to the flood in Thailand hard drive prices are EXTREMELY high right now.

HITACHI Deskstar 3TB 3.5″ SATA 6.0Gb/s Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Seagate Barracuda XT 3TB 3.5″ SATA 6.0Gb/s Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5″ SATA 6.0Gb/s Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

If you choose to have your system files on a separate drive, you can choose to store your media on a 5400rpm drive. Here are a few of my recommendations:

HITACHI Deskstar 3TB 3.5″ SATA 6.0Gb/s Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

HITACHI Deskstar 3TB 3.5″ SATA Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive 

For your system files, I suggest a Solid State Drive. I’m not a huge fan of SSDs. They tend to be expensive and in my opinion not worth the current costs. However, I do have SSDs in several HTPCs. Why? Because they are quick, produce little to no heat, and most importantly dead silent. If your only going to be installing an OS and a some HTPC software a 64GB SSD will do just fine. If you are worried try using a 128GB. I’m going to make SSD recommendations based on reliability and not pure speed/benchmarks. Here are my recommendations:

NOTE: There are some SSDs with issues that can cause lose of data, reliability issues, and random performance issues. I’ve tried my best to select the most reliable SSDs. As a result, you will notice that the SSDs I have selected are more expensive for their size.

Crucial M4 CT064M4SSD2 2.5″ MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 2.5″ MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Intel X25-M SSDSA2MH080G2K5 2.5″ MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Your HTPC build is come near a close. Next will pick out your HTPC case!!

Check back often for more guides to help you with your HTPC build!