Hmmmm. The only aspect that is a challenge is visual media, though it depends on exactly what you want to do.

Needless to say, a thin client is ideal for this. VOIP, FTP and VNC are easy (VNC is a form of remote desktop that lets you operate the remote computer from another machine -- that way you don't need to keep a monitor, mouse and keyboard connected to it).

I've written an article about RAID on a thin client here: http://thinclientforum.com/nas.htm

I'm currently running the following on an HP t5730:

FTP server
VNC server
Two 1-gigabyte RAID 1 installations (total 4 gigabyte) as NAS (network attached storage)
MagicJack VOIP
Blackberry Redirector
Lightscribe DVD for burning, transferring video, etc. with the following software:
-Nero Burning ROM
-AnyDVD
-DVD Shrink
HP Scanner with Adobe Pro Version 7

and probably a couple of other things I've forgotten I've installed.

I chose a t5730 for a couple of reasons:

- It supports PCIe, which permitted a hardware-based RAID solution.
- It has a 1000baseT NIC, which makes it easier to ship data around my LAN

I don't use it for media, but it does serve video to another thin client that plays the video on my home theater at 1080p. Note that the t5730 has an HDMI output and, probably, I could have used it for video media as well. In fact, now that I think about it, I may try it for this purpose (I'm using a t5720 for video support now).

Note, too, that I replaced the 1 gigabyte SSD on which XP Pro SP2 embedded (a subset of XP Pro) is installed with an 8 gigabyte SSD so that I could install a full copy of XP Pro SP3.

I think my system meets all of these requirements. Note in the article the drives that I used. They've been quite reliable (up for 6 months or so), they're dead quiet and don't generate much heat at all, particularly when compared to the Seagate external eSATA drives.

Be warned -- fooling around with thin clients becomes addicting. I have seven of these beasts.

I'm not familiar with the HP KF series. The HP Neoware clients are, I think, neither powerful enough or readily upgradeable with PCI/PCIe cards, SSDs, etc.

I don't know the Shuttle. The MSI and Asus machines certainly have the power to do this (as would an Acer Aspire One), but they all have fans and aren't particularly quiet. I think you'll also have trouble supporting eSATA, which offers approximately 10 times the transfer speed of USB2. You'll also have to rely on a software RAID setup (XP supports this within the OS), which puts an additional load on the CPU.