Let's look at it again. Karl has a lot of video for entertainment. He
likes the idea of it all in one box. I have a lot of video distributed
across my network boxes of which none are complex or expensive, they are
just old reconditioned PC's from the office. All of my video is on USB
drives that sleep until called on. Everything is on power strips with
MOV's. I've had to repair the box connected to the TV twice now due to
failure to blow the dust out once in a while. I think I have the
cheapest best solution.

yep got 15Tb of movies goes up about 10 gig a week. each one on two
hard drives, so 30 Tb needed now.

I move 2000 miles every year. One box easier to take along.

Networking was easy with XP, can't make it work well with W7. Too many
security things. Never did get a movie to play over a network. For
the same reason, I shy away from RAID. Just not enough of a techy any
more.

I do see the downside of this approach. But it seems the best route to
me by taking appropriate steps.