The Revo R3700 that ManofScience mentions is ideal for what you've said your intended use will be.
thats my plan mate, tried everything else so might aswell give this a go too, lol, hated xbmc, but i didnt really give it a good enough chance either, just hated it from start to finish, had my revo that was canny, but still not what i wanted, although at that point i had never tried wmc, so it could have been possibly, had a WD media player that played all files well, but interface was hideous, got my xtreamer pro now that is excellent with the cover art, looks fantastic on my hd optoma projector, but it doesnt do much else to my fancy, although it plays back all files flawlessly, great box, i just always want more, lol, when will it end
that would be fantastic mate as im not really upto speed with the wmc plugins or which are best to use as such, tried a couple and had abit play about but thats about it, but would be great if you could help out on that side of things, so any guidance is good guidance til i get round to building something, i can still mess about with the wmc on my laptop so i can used to it and tryout different things!
thought it would have been mate to be honest, well we could drop the sata 3 compatability as i will be using the htpc to download my films so be no transferring really from other devices,to be honest mate i just want it for watching films, and general browsing, but it needs to be fast at these things as i hate a sluggish interface, i could live with just 1 hard drive bay too, as 1tb is plenty for the brrips i download, my projector is only 720p so thats all i could play anyway, was just thinking 1080 for future proof, also you could knock the 1tb drive off price as iv got 1 that could go in, that any better to work with, lol, thanks for looking though as id be snookered as i aint gotta clue whats compatible with what!
(running xbmc) all controlled via the iPhone app as for the living room I just use my main pc and a 5 metre hdmi cable 
