Advice- All These Computers!! Strategy on Using

[Rokuk]

Hi all!!

So I'm looking for advice on how to best use all these boxes. And no, "GIVE THEM TO MEEEE" is not what I'm looking for ; )

Over the years, I've amassed a few computers of varying age. I have:

> VERY OLD tower:
~ PII 450mhz cpu
~ 128mb DDR 266 ram
~ NVidia Riva TNT (16mb) video
~ IDE 16gb drive

> OLD tower:
~ AMD Athlon 64 (3000+) cpu
~ 2gig DDR333 ram
~ ATI Radeon 9800Pro (256mb) video
~ IDE 80gb drive

> AGING laptop:
~ Celeron M 1.7ghz cpu
~ 1gig DDR2 ram
~ ATI Radeon Xpress X200M (128mb) video
~ SATA 80gb drive

> NEWER laptop:
~ AMD Turion 64 Mobile ML-44 cpu
~ 2gig DDR400 ram
~ 9700 NVidia GeForce Go 7900 GS (256mb) video
~ SATA 200gb drive


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is what I want:
> GOAL A: I am a casual gamer (do not need bleeding-edge gear, but ability to play 1 year old games on default settings = good). Will also use this for day-to-day email/internet...

> GOAL B: create a media and backup server (set up RAID mirroring, then synch to backup several GB of data on a regular basis). Data here should be accessible by all other devices on the network (main storage of music/photos/videos, and backup storage of document files).

> GOAL C: create a development box for web development (probably a LAMP, or at least "W-AMP" server). Note: This will be for internal development only (not serving to internet).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

GOAL A: use the NEWER laptop?
> I'm not sure how much I can get out of it and if it will really fit my needs for GOAL A for very long. Also, I have a personal preference for desktops/towers for my high-end machine, but I guess I could live with it.

GOAL B: use the OLD tower as the media and backup server.
> It is in a SOHO server case, so should be able to handle the number of drives. I am thinking maybe RAID mirror two 1 TB or 1.5 TB drives for storage, and use a smaller drive to run the operating system on. In this plan, will need to purchase these three drives and possibly a RAID controller?
> Have never run/set up a RAID system before. Understand the theory, but not the implementation (also, RAID controllers are confusing).

GOAL C: use aging laptop?
> again, have a preference for towers, but just don't know if the VERY OLD tower has the power to handle being a good web development server...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Questions:

~ What are your thoughts on this plan? Do you think I am planning to use these systems in the best way with my Goals? Any suggestions and/or comments here?

~ Where is a good place to compare TOWER versus LAPTOP CPU benchmarks? What about Video benchmarks? Example: Tomshardware has some good charts to compare laptop to laptop or tower to tower, but I don't know how to interpret that to compare laptop equipment to tower equipment in terms of speed/performance!!

~ How does a RAID controller alert you when a mirrored drive goes down so you know to replace it?



THANK YOU!! = )

 

[Rokuk]

If this helps anyone: I have found www.notebookcheck.net was actually very helpful to figure out laptop video gear benchmarks... but I still haven't found a good place to do comparisons of laptop VS desktop equipment...

 

[InflatableBuddha]

Hierarchy chart for video cards, both laptop and desktop.

Your Go 7900 GS looks equivalent to a 6800GT, so that may give you some trouble on 1-year old games.

 

[somethingsketchy]

You could use your "AGING laptop" as a kitchen pc. Something that will hold all of your family recipes and even have access to the Internet to find new ones. That is what I am planning on doing with a junker laptop that I no longer use for my family. Something simple and effective for the job. Hell that 80gb drive could hold a few thousand recipes and not flinch.

 

[Rokuk]

EDIT: I just realized many of the new HD's may run better under new mobo technology (eSATA...)? Should I just bite the bullet and get new technology for my "media and backup server" for the performance boost and non-legacy HD hardware?


------------


Hi guys! Thanks for your comments = )

Originally posted by: InflatableBuddha
Hierarchy chart for video cards, both laptop and desktop.

Your Go 7900 GS looks equivalent to a 6800GT, so that may give you some trouble on 1-year old games.

This chart is VERY helpful, I can't believe I couldn't find it. Thanks so much! Looking at the benchmarks, I think you're right. If I stick to my current crop of games, I guess I will be alright until the "next big thing" comes out I just "have to" buy. Again, just a casual gamer right now (time constraints = grrr), so it looks like will probably just stick to my older games for now anyway = )

Originally posted by: somethingsketchy
You could use your "AGING laptop" as a kitchen pc. Something that will hold all of your family recipes and even have access to the Internet to find new ones. That is what I am planning on doing with a junker laptop that I no longer use for my family. Something simple and effective for the job. Hell that 80gb drive could hold a few thousand recipes and not flinch.

Maybe! If I did that, are you suggesting I use the "VERY OLD tower" for web development instead? Do you think it could handle it?

I was actually using the "AGING laptop" for music at parties for awhile (it actually has very nice speakers, for a laptop) - but I just got a wireless speaker set, so I shouldn't need it for that anymore.


Thanks again guys!

 

[somethingsketchy]

It probably could with web development...I don't think most of any web development would take a lot of resources to work with. It is worth a shot.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: Rokuk
Over the years, I've amassed a few computers of varying age. I have:

> VERY OLD tower:
~ PII 450mhz cpu
~ 128mb DDR 266 ram

Wait a minute here.
A PII machine that uses "DDR" memory... what MB is that?

 

[Denithor]

Very old tower - donate to Goodwill. If they will even take it.

Aging lappy - yep, general surfing & etc around the house.

For the rest, I would personally gut the AMD tower, replace cpu/mobo/ram/psu like this:

X2 4850e $55
780G $75
4GB DDR2 $40
400W Corsair $40

That will run any general apps you can toss at it, game about the same as the old 9800pro you've got now (or add a real video card if you want to game) and use less energy than the old tower currently does with the slower single-core processor.

Sell the innards from the AMD tower (Socket 939 chip? high resell value on eBay) to recover part of this cost.