Home server for <$600.

Hey guys,

I have recently been thinking that I need to build a server for my house. We stream media to 2 TV, 2 Tablets, and there are 3 laptops in the house as well as my main PC. Hard drives are filling up everywhere with movies, photos, and music. I have been using my main PC to 'serve' everything but it is starting to get so full that it is bothering me.

I was hoping to spend about 600 or less and have something with about 6-8TB of storage that will stream media to the tablets and the PS3. It would also be nice if I could manage my torrents on the server as well ( I assume I can do this remotely somehow). And I hope to just have a box that I can tuck away and never have to fuss with directly. I also have a mix of MAC and Win7 devices they would all need to be supported.

The recent article of FreeNas on the MaximumPC homepage is what got me thinking about this, but I thing that the amount of money spent ($2000) is not needed for what I do. I have also been reading that Ubuntu can act as a server as well ( I have experience with ubuntu)

My concerns are that I stream mostly 1080p video, will the CPU in the server effect the quality I get? Or is that handled by what I am streaming to?

I would also like to automate my torrent downloads and extraction if possible. I think FreeNass can utilize RSS with transmission and FlexGet, which would be nice.

Any suggestion of hardware (newegg.ca or ncix.com) or software would be appreciated. I am well versed in PC building so I am looking for DIY and not premade NAS hardware.

Phad.