@Noel My TV/Home music system are one and the same (given the size of my apartment, no need for two). I use my HTPC to stream everything, but because Home Server also has UPnP enabled, you could just as easily use an XBox 360 or PS3 (at least for the music).

Any device capable of streaming from a UPnP source will be able to stream music from WHS. There is a short list (no idea if its a comprehensive list) on Wikipedia about UPnP Hardware Players

Stream movies stored on a Windows Home Server Box to a TV; and

Stream music stored on a Windows Home Sever Box to a home music system.

Thanks.

I had an old Athlon 2400XP and motherboard with 512Mb of RAM and did notice performance did suffer at times. So I upped it to

- Gigabyte GA-G33M-S2L
- Core2Duo E4600 (Stock Cooler)
- Antec NSK1380 cube case with 80plus 350W PSU

The parts I had lying around from the old machine were:
4Gb DDR2 533 (Experimenting with running linux VMs on the box)
2 x 500Gb + 1x 320Gb Seagate SATA drives
Some old CD burner (swapped with DVD burner for install)

That system seems to be sitting pretty nicely on 60-65w at idle.

I actually regret going with the cube case, just kind of got caught up with the ‘that looks cool’ factor. It is an absolute pain to work in, the drives are a touch hotter than the old solution. I may possibly switch to one of the other Antec NSKs at some stage.

I was also rather surprised that WHS let me switch so much hardware and I didn’t have to reactivate over the phone.

@Timbo Yeah, its ridiculous that we’ve now reached a level where the case is one of the most expensive components! “My” first computer (vs computers that were designated family ones) cost me ~$500 for JUST the CPU and motherboard, and that was considered a budget system at the time!