- Jul 21, 2012
- 8
- 0
- 0
Ladies and Gentlemen,
This inquiry will seem very remedial and retro, Im sure. Im not a technophobe, Im kind of mathematical and logical, but Im sort of on a need-to-know basis with technology.
I have been running my home-based specialty finance business using four old Pentiums, Windows XP, Windows file-sharing local network. One of the computers is also the server, with its 180GB HDD. I use MS Office, Acrobat, and QuickBooks.
(1) The motherboard on this server died, and Im getting a new server.
XP is somehow over (I dont really understand the implications of that). Id rather just leave the remaining 3 old computers as they are, with XP.
Will the other three installed old Pentiums, using XP, be able to use shared MS Office files with the new server, which will use Windows 7, 8, or 8.1? By use, I mean access and modify the files?
Is there any tangible advantage to buying three $200 refurbs that could run the updated Windows 7, 8, or 8.1?
Should I care whether Im getting Windows 7, 8, or 8.1? Should I care if Im getting home version or pro version?
(2) As you can see, I dont need much storage. The SSDs are so cheap that Im thinking of running the entire business on an SSD. I dont comprehend the scale of the write limitations on an SSD. To quote one entry I saw: To go over the writes limit, you have to do something like 5GB of writes a day for 5 years.
Is there noticeable improved speed from using only the SSD, as opposed to programs on SSD, but data on HDD?
Assuming I would notice the difference if I went 100% SSD, if I were to buy a 500GB SSD for $250, Id be more than happy with 5 years of service from the drive. I preemptively replace HDDs more often than that. Id accept 3 years of service.
Probably the most write-intensive activity that happens here is to save one of several 5 MB spreadsheets. In addition, we create new documents than may be 0.5 MB. So if we did each activity 50 times a day (and we probably do only 20% of that), it would total roughly 0.3 GB.
But how much background writing is going on without our being aware of it?
Is there an easy way to know how much writing onto the server drive is happening every day?
(3) I thought about custom built, and it seems 30% more costly than just buying a Dell or HP or Lenovo based on dealnews.com, and then putting in an SSD. Is the difference in components really worth a custom build?
Many thanks for anyone's time and expertise.
This inquiry will seem very remedial and retro, Im sure. Im not a technophobe, Im kind of mathematical and logical, but Im sort of on a need-to-know basis with technology.
I have been running my home-based specialty finance business using four old Pentiums, Windows XP, Windows file-sharing local network. One of the computers is also the server, with its 180GB HDD. I use MS Office, Acrobat, and QuickBooks.
(1) The motherboard on this server died, and Im getting a new server.
XP is somehow over (I dont really understand the implications of that). Id rather just leave the remaining 3 old computers as they are, with XP.
Will the other three installed old Pentiums, using XP, be able to use shared MS Office files with the new server, which will use Windows 7, 8, or 8.1? By use, I mean access and modify the files?
Is there any tangible advantage to buying three $200 refurbs that could run the updated Windows 7, 8, or 8.1?
Should I care whether Im getting Windows 7, 8, or 8.1? Should I care if Im getting home version or pro version?
(2) As you can see, I dont need much storage. The SSDs are so cheap that Im thinking of running the entire business on an SSD. I dont comprehend the scale of the write limitations on an SSD. To quote one entry I saw: To go over the writes limit, you have to do something like 5GB of writes a day for 5 years.
Is there noticeable improved speed from using only the SSD, as opposed to programs on SSD, but data on HDD?
Assuming I would notice the difference if I went 100% SSD, if I were to buy a 500GB SSD for $250, Id be more than happy with 5 years of service from the drive. I preemptively replace HDDs more often than that. Id accept 3 years of service.
Probably the most write-intensive activity that happens here is to save one of several 5 MB spreadsheets. In addition, we create new documents than may be 0.5 MB. So if we did each activity 50 times a day (and we probably do only 20% of that), it would total roughly 0.3 GB.
But how much background writing is going on without our being aware of it?
Is there an easy way to know how much writing onto the server drive is happening every day?
(3) I thought about custom built, and it seems 30% more costly than just buying a Dell or HP or Lenovo based on dealnews.com, and then putting in an SSD. Is the difference in components really worth a custom build?
Many thanks for anyone's time and expertise.