Dedicated PC "Jukebox?"

Ok, possibly weird question (yeah, another one ).
 
I've got a LOT of music in my iTunes and am about to put even more in there (currently >25,000 songs and >120 days worth of songs).  Needless to say, they all don't fit on any of my iPods and the size definitely slows down my old PC if I want to listen and work (I currently cycle them on and out of my iPods instead).
 
Anyway, I'm up too late tonight combining notes about artists to checkout and was thinking about the whole setup.  I happen to have a AirPort Express that I'm not using right now that can send songs from iTunes to any playing device wirelessly and came up with this possibly stupid idea:
 
What about having a small, dedicated PC Jukebox just for playing iTunes?  Sure, a tablet would be cool for this (I've got a Toshiba Thrive), except they can't handle a lot of data.  I'm going to want to have at least a 1 TB drive for this, but it would only need to have an OS and iTunes running.  I doubt I'd need much power (even if iTunes can be painfully slow for some operations), however I'm thinking it could be one of those small cube PC's.  A small screen and a wireless keyboard/mouse combo would round out the system.  Needless to say, I'm hoping that any solution is fairly cheap (since I already own most of the parts I would need except for the PC itself).
 
Has anyone else done a solution like this?  Are there better ways to accomplish this?
 
Ooo...  Just thought of this...  Would an old netbook accessing an external harddrive work?

I'm having a old computer which I've installed Windows Home server on, and put it 2x HDDs (one 1,5TB for storage and a 150GB for OS) + a external 1,5TB USB for extra backup.

Works nicely, and streams all my music and video all around the house. Wether it is a I-thingy or a windows thingy.
Or my Win7 mobile - the kids xbox or whatever :)

I dont know if the small cube things are ok, I've never tried.
(mine is hidden under a stair so I dont care that it is ugly and noisy :) )

craigb

kristoffer


I dont know if the small cube things are ok, I've never tried.
(mine is hidden under a stair so I dont care that it is ugly and noisy :) )

Wow, so I guess I'll have to buy stairs too?  Man, this little project is getting expensive!

Thats the way of computers. You are never finished.
Just when you have almost completed your nicely stair (which by the way became more expensive than you thought due to incompatible hardware) you realize that the top of the stair does not have a floor.... Then you have it going...