interested in building a computer for cloud storage.

Or anything else?I don't have a price in mind yet. I'm doing some research in setting up a new computer to act as a cloud. I use a program called qloud on my android device to transcode video and music.

What I hope to achieve with this is a quiet, running 12 hours a day machine that has plenty of power to transcode HD quality x264 video. I'd like as low a power usage as possible while still being able to transcode HD video. Is there any recommended processor that can achieve this? I do fear leaving electronics on all day with no one there so reliability is the no. 1 concern .

I may also use it as a media center. Any case or processor recommendations? Or anything else?

A cloud implies redundancy, so a single computer doesn't really qualify, although with all the cloud marketing garbage out there its hard to really define what cloud is or ever was... Its become any technology someone wants to sell as trendy.

It sounds like what you really want is a reliable low power HTPC.

I currently use an i3-2100 GPU and onboard graphics in my HTPC. I do a lot of 1080P video, and it does it without flinching. This may not be the cheapest approach. It transcodes video on the fly, streaming it via Plex to other computers or phones.

Any computer can transcode HD video though, so we would need to know how many hours of HD x264 video you are aiming to transcode in a day. It would also depend on what you are transcoding from and to. x264 is most standardly either 720p or 1080p, and the source would typically be raw bluray.

I.M.O.G. said:

Any computer can transcode HD video though, so we would need to know how many hours of HD x264 video you are aiming to transcode in a day.

Click to expand...

Now that's a good question. I have the computer in my specs, core i7 920@ 4ghz. I figured it could do the grunt work.

Ya, that would do fine for the processing side of things.