Pros and cons of a "God box" versus a Lan of lesser boxen, from a security POV?

[VirtualLarry]

Would it be better to have a single, powerful computer, on which you store all of your esssential data, and programs, and use that for everything, or would it be better to have a small LAN of devices, say a desktop PC, and a storage server, etc.?

This is in the context of remote-access, and security of same, along with the risk of say, getting a virus from browsing sites, etc

I'm wondering which is the best solution. Maybe even setting up a server, that is also a workstation, such that I would directly log on to the server when local, and log on to my account remotely when remote. But that has its downsides too, what about browser exploits and somesuch. It would suck to have to rebuild a server, especially if the data on it got corrupted, or perhaps worse, leaked out.

Then again, what about virtualization? Would it be safe to browse the net on the server, if I were running inside a VM too, such that only the VM could get corrupted?

 

[masteryoda34]

Lowest cost = all one machine
Best solution = different machines
Ideal solution = virtualization

IMO

 

[Gamingphreek]

Lowest cost = all one machine
Best solution = different machines
Ideal solution = virtualization

IMO

I agree with the first 2 solutions; however, I disagree with the last solution.

There are exploits that can traverse virtual machines. Furthermore, if you have 1 machine running all the virtual servers then you are again sitting on a single point of failure.

-SP