newbie with basic question, please

One question. Is everythng in the same room? Big hard drive tends to be noisy.

If the HD is in another room, need to make sure your network is fast enough to do what you need. Wired or wifi. Consider Wifi-N router with a NAS connect directly to it and put these in another room. Should be good enough for audio, but HD video might be tough.

For AppleTV + I touch solution, still need a monitor or TV to see the album art. Not that bad. Just need to get an inexpensive 16:9 LCD monitor wth DVI/HDCP input.

Thank you!

All in the same room - an home office, actually, with several computers.

Hard to know about the DAC/pre - I cannot find any near me to try, so it'll be a shot in the dark.

A friend (restock) uses the mac mini with the USB benchmark and external notebook drives. sound great and is really quiet! The notebook drives are important since the standard 3.5" drivers can be a little on the noisy side.
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I'm using a benchmark DAC1 USB and have zero complaints with the sound. My laptop and 750gig external hard drive are on the same breaker and sit less than 4 feet from my rig (my amp is sharing the same outlet with my computer). DAC is fed by a 6' USB cable.

mixing/matching ICs and power cords can do A LOT to calm down any edge/siblance associated with 16bit digital from the computer through the 24-bit upsampling DAC.

thanks, all, very much. keep the rec's coming!