[the_tyrant]

My advice (I just built a new system):

Big hard drives are a great idea. I bought a 3tb drive for 199$, while a 1 tb drive is like 150$. The cost per gb goes down as the size of drive goes up.

4 cores are a good idea. Its barely more expensive than a duel core processor. and the performance increase is quite noticeable.

Also, build for the future. Get a good stable rig that can be upgraded.