suggestions for ground up household

[rbthompsonv]

Hey guys... Looking for some suggestions on a new setup...
Basically, right now I have a main server (windows 8) serving all of my media. Its set up as a 250gb main HDD with 2x2tb hard drives run in windows f*Ed up "raid" style span...
As a main machine, I use a macbook pro laptop. Girlfriend also has a MVP and a windows work laptop.
I have 1 main raspberry pi running xbian in our living room. I just ordered 3 more (1 for my office, 1 for our bedroom, 1 for our guest bedroom).
I have been trying to get MySQL to work correctly between win8 and the RPI to do things like pause in 1 room, resume in another... But I'm not sure if I'm doing it wrong or what... But regardless, I really dislike windows 8 as a base...
That being said... Im basically asking, given the equipment I have, what is the best setup from the ground up to do? All of my media is backed up on an external drive and I am willing to start from square one... I'm not a total noon with Linux or networking... But not a pro either... So I'm OK with things being dumbed down (but can skip past the questions of "Is it plugged in"...
Anyway... Any help is appreciated, any information you need, I'm happy to supply...
Sorry if I left something out, writing this on my phone.

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So, I realize that was a little vague...
Step 1: What is the best setup for hosting my Media?
I have 2 2tb HDDs for holding the videos... what is the best platform/OS to host that media on? I do not use the host for ANYTHING other than holding those files... Should I stick with the mini-PC that the hard drives are on now and continue having them hosted from a Windows based machine? or am I better off using one of the Pis to form a NAS? Or do I use the same system already in place but with some other OS like UBUNTU to host the media?

Again, this machine really only serves to store a lot of data... otherwise, it really doesnt do much...

Suggestions on data serving/storage for a bunch of other XBMC machines...