Maximum PC

I'm building a rig for a friend, and he likes the idea of WHS 2011, but wants to be able to encode on the server (encode video files using Handbrake or other tools) while the server is not "in use" (over night).

Should I use Win7 and just set up some shares, or should I use WHS 2011? I know that Win7 is not the "best" solution for a server, but considering what he wants to do, would handbrake work on WHS 2011?

Why does he not use his main computer for encoding video files when he goes to sleep? Unless he does not sleep? does he sleep?

WHS as you know doesn't exactly need a lot of system resources to run, since its suppose to work as a NAS with windows. It's not designed to do the more advanced apps and such that a feature rich OS like win7 does. You can use win7 as a NAS/server if you wanted to, user groups/libraries isn't that hard to do, but don't exactly go and build a "server" box using some atom's and expect them to run through some intensive cpu workloads.


I'd still consider going the NAS route with cheap hardware and use his main, speedy rig for encoding when not in use. If he wants a separate rig, then stick with win7; just make sure you put some decent parts in it.

I normally would have suggested that, this is what he has: a laptop (which is a few years old, and is Pentium Dual-Core based (which in my opinion isn't going to encode video very well or very fast), and his actual desktop computer is an older Pentium 4 (somwhere around 2.8-3.0 GHZ), so nothing amazing there.

He got the idea from me, after seeing what I did (difference is that I have a normal rig I encode video on, an then dump to the server), plus a newer laptop, but he doesn't want to spend a lot, and certainly doesn't want to buy/build two computers at this point (I think he uses the P4 for simple online tasks, such as Torrenting or other light Internet-related things--mainly as a downloading computer). His laptop is where he currently stores everything at. I honestly suggested just a USB drive and a router, but he wants to be able to access data from both (and I guess the NAS would work too).

(He got this whole idea from me, to be honest... I wanted a system that I could store all of my media on, and access it from my laptop, tablet or TV). Difference is that I was willing to spend the extra money for a second system, he is not as willing (or able) to.

So it looks like Windows 7 it may be... I was thinking (just for cost reasons) An Athlon quad core (probably one of the lower-end units, with 8GB of RAM of DDR3 which is very cheap now, and a decent board (probably with onboard video, since he doesn't really play games--just watches video from the Internet or DVDs, etc). I haven't completely spec'ed it out yet, but I think his budget was around $350-400 (I have some spare parts I'm giving him... like a spare case and power supply...)

Whats the storage capacity of the Pentium 4 system? How many drives are in it and how much ram? What mobo?

The old pentium 4's aren't that much slower than the dual core atom processors so it should have enough power using any linux distro and use it as a NAS box... or you could use FreeNAS, the BSD based OS for a lot more customization than WHS, but it does require a lot of RAM and a bit of knowledge to get it up and running; not exactly plug and play like WHS is, but again WHS needs more stout hardware than the P4. This way your friend could recycle the older computer and re-purpose it without having to build a 2nd machine.

Since the P4 uses the old old RDRAM or the first DDR, you can easily supplement them by using a modern SATA SSD, which I'm pretty confident he would also lack, so you'll have to install a pci (not pcie) sata controller; something like a 4 port sata1 or 2 board, nothing fancy. Or he could installed a raid card, but increases costs and not recommended for FreeNAS, although it would be for Linux if he went that route since that OS is more of a proper desktop that can use apps.


Then just build one main rig for his computer needs. For the build, what other parts are you supplying and need for the 350-400 budget? I'm gonna assume he needs win7 still?