New build help please (recording studio)

[Homerboy]

My buddy runs a recording studio here in town and is looking for a new PC for his setup. I used to be heavily into building PCs and keeping up on the latest and greatest, but sadly other endeavors and "real life" (whatever that is) have gotten me away from the hobby, so I'm calling on the throbbing brain of the Anandtech Forums to help me out here.

Basically, I have a ~$1000 budget to work off of.
No need for any high-end video card or monitor (IGP is fine).
I'm thinking of a 256-512GM SSD for OS and applicaitions.
3x1TB (or 2TB) in RAID5 for storage (he will be backing up to external HDDs as well.

I need some help picking out the CPU and MB specifically though.

It needs to be as quiet as possible and all go into a 4U rackmount case (also need to buy that).

Thoughts? Suggestions?

 

[mfenn]

Is this a storage box or is it going to be running some applications? If applications, what sort?

 

[Homerboy]

To be honest, very basic stuff. He just is a wanna-be-nerd and wants a "killer machine".
The heaviest thing he'd be running is Pro-Tools. Other than that some pretty light programs.

It won't be a "storage box" per se. I do want to give him some decent storage on it though so he can have multiple copies of his files both on the studio machine and on his external drive(s).

would be nice if the MB had firewire header so that I can plug in a front port so external HDDs (his and musicians) can just easily be plugged in.

 

[Homerboy]

What may be trickier is finding a decent 4U case that doesn't have a locking front panel (though I am guessing that most of them can just be removed... though none explicitly say that)

 

[mfenn]

I'm guessing he has a 4-post rack ready to go? Most 4U computer cases aren't really designed to go into a 2-post. Rails will also eat a good chunk of the budget.

i5 4570 $200
ASRock H87M Pro4 $83
Team DDR3 1600 16GB $120
Crucial M500 240GB $175
Seagate 2TB 7200RPM x3 $300
Rosewill Hive 550W $35 AR AP
Norco 4U rackmount case $68 AP
32" rail kit $35
PCIe Firewire card with header $19
Silverstone 3.5" USB/Firewire/Audio bay $20
Total: $1055 AR AP

You can see from the pictures on Newegg that the hinges for the front door are just held on by normal screws. Undo those and the door should come right off.