My setup consists of:

CASE - APEX MI-008 w/250W PSU
MEMORY - 4GB DDR2 800 A-DATA ADQVE1B16K
DVD - Lite-On 24X CD/DVD Burner iHAS124
MB/CPU - ZOTAC IONITX-F-E Intel Atom 330 (1.6GHz, dual-core)
Tuner - HDHomerun (dual)
Remote - AVS Gear MG-IR01BK
FAN - Scythe S-FLEX 120mm Case Fan, 800RPM, Model: SFF21D
HW - SilverStone SST-SDP08 (Mounts x2 2.5 drives in 3.5 bracket)

<NOTE: the SST-SDP08 will let mount the 2.5 drives under the 3.5 drive while keeping good airflow over the CPU>

HD OS - WD2500BEKT 250 GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 2.5"
HD Media - WD10EARS 1TB 5400 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5"
HD TV - TBD ???

I'm in the process building my server now.   I have everything but the two hard drives and the OS.  They have been ordered but haven't arrived yet.

I plan on using synctoy to sync the 'Media' hard drive (in the living room) with a drive on my PC (in my computer room).  Both drives will be 1TB.   I'll schedule a task to wake up my PC and the Windows Media Center Server once or twice a week.

If I need to expand 'Media' hard drive (e.g. 1TB to 2TB) in the server, I could always move the server drive to the PC and purchase a new one for the server.

Anyway, my question is whether I should get a third hard drive for tv recordings only?

I was thinking about getting a WD Scorpio Blue (250, 320 or 500 GB - WDxxx0BEVT) drive for this function.   Can anyone tell me the significant benefits (if any) to separating my tv recordings from the rest of my media (movies, home videos, photos)? My 'Media' drive should mostly be static; I won't be reading/writing/deleting files that often.  As oppose to the 'TV' drive which will be used for live tv and scheduled recordings.  So obvioiusly I think I'll reduce the wear/tear on 'Media' drive and won't have a need to degragment it as often

Does anyone else have a setup similar to what I'm describing (separate tv recordings hard drive)?  Or has anyone used a WD Scorpio Blue with two simultanous recordings or (2 scheduled or 1 scheduled/1 live)?

Thanks in advance!

I have always used and recommend a separate drive for Recorded TV. It's an easy way to rule out competition for the hard drive when you encounter problems, and you'll never have to worry about interfering with Recorded TV if you run a disk-intensive activity on your Media drive. My WD10EACS (original WD 5400RPM Green drive) has been in service for this since Nov 2007 and can record 4 HD programs at once and play back another. I wouldn't get less than a 1TB drive, but then I may not get around to watching recorded programs for months. Also, if you at least use a dedicated partition for Recorded TV, you might want to format it with 64KB clusters, which will reduce fragmentation and possibly enhance performance.

Thanks for the advice.   I just ordered a WD15EARS (1.5 TB) to serve as my media drive and I'll use the WD10EARS (1 TB), that I previously ordered, for the tv recordings.

As it turns out the 500 GB 2.5 drive was the same price as the 1 TB 2.3 drive and the 1.5 TB was only $20 more.

Hey there, 

Don't know if you've made your decision or not. But for what it's worth.

My house is PC heavy:

1 converted Media Live Machine that I've put an ASUS HDMI MB in

4 Dell laptops mostly running wireless in various bedrooms and breakfast counter (hidden in a cabinet and hooked to a 17in monitor/TV for cartoon viewing

1 ASUS P5S800VM machine that is hooked into the house amplifier providing the tunes. (this used to carry the libraries on two 1TB drives)

After having to reload the CD/DVD/Picture library twice due to human error.

 I use a D-Link 323 storage box with two WD Green 1TB drives. It rides on the network via a 10/100/1000 Ethernet. I use 1 for all the junk media, pics/music/pdfs/docs and what not

Then the other carriers the DVD/RecordedTV folders.

Great thing is the box is self monitoring and generates messages when it detects a problem or the drives start getting full. Plus you can map them to your other PC's and all the sharing issues go away. I tried to break it by streaming the same movie to all PC's starting the movie about 5 minutes apart on each, only my wife's older Dell Inspiron 1500 over wireless started having playback issues.

If you are willing to spend a little more, why not buy a Windows Home Server and have your Media Center machines point to it for their additional TV Recordings.   You record locally on a smaller drive, use the builtin Media Center archive and then each Media Center machine has access to the shared archives.  I do this at home today.  Growing your Recorded TV on your Home Server is very easy, just add another drive, enable it for the drive pool and go.   You can also choose to make it redundant if you have multiple drives in your home server.

For now my media center is going to have to perform a dual role.  For my setup, getting a NAS or a WHS has to be lower on my priority list.  I first need to address getting access to the media center content from 2 to 3 other locations.  

I plan on putting the media center in the living room where we do most of our tv watching.   I have a PC running windows 7 in the office so I should be good here too.   I would like to get access from my bedroom tv and the tv (& projector) in the basement. 

I have a Windows XP PC running XBMC in the basement so initially I think I'll be fine watching the stored content from the media center.  This would limit me to recorded (not live) tv but that's okay. For the bedroom, I need to determine my requirements.   If, like the basement, I only care about watching stored media then I have a lot of options.   I could look at media players such as the wdtv, popbox, A-200 NMT,a XBMC pc, xbox 360, etc. 

The A-200 NMT caught my eye since it has Windows Media Connect (WMC) and Windows Media Player NSS.  The popbox is interesting too because it may have WMC and the ability to connect to Netflix.

If I want more control over the media center and want access to live tv then I'm a bit more restricted.   I have to get 1) an extender or 2) setup another media center pc.

The XBOX 360 may be a good candidate for this type of setup but then I lose netflix capability.

Needless to say I have some more work and learning to do before I address a potential storage issue.  However thanks for the input and please keep the comments & suggestions coming.

In the end, I think I will pursue a WHS but its going to be a few months off.

I can't wait...tomorrow my windows 7 software and the hard drive for the OS should be delivered.

Check the NetFlix site, I've got a Wii and the disk is in the works ... I'm in the long line, but I'm in line :-))

 http://www.netflix.com/NetflixReadyDevicesDetails?trkid=1473815&lnkctr=nrd-d-m-5-xbox360&pdid=5&lnkce=nrd-d

Thanks. I ordered my disk a few weeks back but my wii is connected to the same tv that I'll be connecting the windows media center. 

Having netflix access at locations other than the living room may not be essential but it's an option I'm weighing.