1. I would suggest the X2 4981. If you want a FTP server built in, there is an X2 BIOS with one in, but is very unstable and should not be used. If the HDD hasn't been formatted for the xbox yet, you can format it with xboxHDM or with slayer's disc. If you are only wanting to TSOP it so you can use a bigger HDD, you won't need to because you can use a different HDD on a softmodded xbox. Before you flash a BIOS to your xbox, configure it in XBTool. Use that to set the .xbe's to boot, and you can also change the colors of the xbox booting up. Since you have a 1.4 xbox, you can only flash one bank, 256kb BIOS.
2. I beleive you can use evox to flash the TSOP when the points are bridged. If you already have a choice in evox to flash, you can just FTP the BIOS into wherever EvoX wants you to store the BIOS. You could also take the safe way and just use a gamesave exploit and flash it through there. You can get a Splinter Cell, MechAssault, and 007 gamesave with raincoat. raincoat runs a very small linux distro where you can connect to the xbox with telnet and flash it. You have to have the BIOS you want to flash in the gamesave folder. With the gamesave, you can also just flash it through the small dashboard it comes up with, but you need the BIOS in a different folder.
If you are too confused about what I said, I could kinda summarize it some other time.
