New Desktop Computer

[Sonny]

After 3+ lacrosse seasons with the same box, it's time to upgrade the home computer. I will be in the market for a new top of the line Windows XP desktop and LCD flat panel in mid/late July.

The deals I see on almost daily basis on Dell's web site are pretty amazing, so I'm leaning in that direction. If any of you have any experience with Dell, I would appreciate your help in how to best "time" my purchase. I understand that they offer more "deals" the last week or two during a month or quarter to help push sales. I also like your input on their varying levels of support/warranty packages.

Some general questions for you computer gurus out there....

1. Windows - What is the difference in all the current flavors of Windows XP? There is Windows Home Edition, Windows Professional, and Windows Media Edition?!? Should I be concerned about future upgradability for Windows Vista (coming out in 2007 I believe)?

2. MS Office - Can I upgrade to the latest edition of Office on my new desktop, if I can prove to Microsoft that I previously had a copy of my old computer? How does the licensing work for that?

3. Sound Card - I want continue with my podcasting career. Thoughts on the best sound card for this? Or should i just go with the most expensive one out there?

4. Disk Drives/Back-up - What is the best way to handle drive space and incremental back-ups? I know they offer a RAID setup where you buy a pair of identical hard drives and your info is written to both drives simulataneously. (Which offers you a simple solution should the first drive fail.)

OR should I segment the drive into two partions (one for data and one for applications) and backup in an alternate method? I'm basically looking for an easy daily or weekly back-up solution with minimal involvement/effort.

5. File Transfer from old computer - I have three hard disk drives now with data spread out across all of them. How should I move them to the new drive? Or should I even move them at all?

Thanks for your help!

[KnoxVegas]

Mac's do all this.

[laxfan25]

What's the total capacity of the three existing drives? It may be worth getting a big drive on the new box and adding the biggest of the old ones in as well.

Something I would consider as well is the Dell Outlet store. http://www.dell.com/content/default.asp ... ndwidth=NA
I bought my daughter a very powerful laptop for her work in art school from there - saved at least $800 vs buying it new.
Our company buys all refurbished Dells from here as well. In my mind they're as good as new. Best time to shop is early in the morning as they restock with the previous day's output. You would be amazed at how many boxes they sell out of here in a day, the inventory drops dramatically during the day. You can sort by price and then examine the features - memory, HD etc.

If you're shopping Dell, I would at least check out the outlet.

[Sonny]

If you are shopping Dell, I would at least check out the outlet.

Yeah.. I bought my last laptop from Dell Outlet several years ago and it was pretty good deal. Looking for Desktop only this time around. And all of the deals (coupons) are for new Dell equipment.

[Kyle Berggren]

I would take a look at the deals on www.gotapex.com

That's essentially a site for computer geeks to post deals and rebates they've found, and it is geared for the dell site. If you ever have a problem with it, I'd call in the order. A good friend of mine purchased (2 months ago), and $2.5k laptop for 1300 shipped because of that site. I don't normally see as many deals on desktops as their laptops, but there's always something. Usually you'll see just about every deal possible in about a 3 week period watching that site. Good luck.

I'd run a partition between applications & storage, other than that, I couldn't offer any customized advice for you regarding your other questions. I don't remember the differences between the versions of XP, for some reason I think its speed, but I'm not sure.

[laxative]

Mac's do all this.

I concur!

[mholtz]

Sonny: here are my answers (IMO) to your questions.

1. XP home is XP pro with some stuff removed. This, at times, has made it unstable. I'd go with pro. Media is for machines that sit next to your TV, and act as a "media center" you don't want that.

2. Office - you have to buy a new version of office. They don't do upgrades like that anymore really, especially if the old computer is still in working order.

3. sound card - the encoding into MP3 of the podcasts is going to degrade the quality of the audio more than an inexpensive sound card will. I wouldn't spend too much on this. Make sure you have the correct inputs, and you'll be fine.

4. backups - I wouldn't mirror. you will take a performance hit on writes to disk, and I have never trusted windows raid. It's just funky. I'd really recommend just backing up "my documents" and keeping everything in there. there is no need to create a seperate partition. That is what directories are for. The most inexpensive way to do backups is probably to burn to CD or DVD if you have that much data. I'd STRONGLY recommend getting a DVD burner. They are inexpensive enough that you should pretty much always have one.

5. Don't move the drives. Your machine will come with 2 IDE controllers, each capable of holding 2 drives. Note, this WILL include your DVD/CD drive. Use windows networking, and just copy the files over.

[horn17]

Sonny - Ping me, I get a great deal on Dell's....and can see if there is a price difference, and if I can save you some cash, well that would be just super....

I agree, DVD back up is the way to go...Raids are just to unstable, and if it goes down, its a pain to get back...get a 250gb drive in the machine, thats pretty common place today, as the 500gb are starting to become available.

[mholtz]

Raids are just to unstable,

Not to get in a nerd war, but Raids aren't unstable in general. People have been using them for years under Unix/Linux and other such OS's. Microsoft, however, is a very different story when it comes to raid.

[horn17]

I was refering to home deskstop raids...not the most suitable enviroment for Microsoft OS's.....Linux is ok...I just see so many failed Raid set ups (by home users), that I never recommend them for home users....good call though Matt, good call....

[Sonny]

Thanks for the heads up on the RAID arrangement. I definitely will be going Windows environment (not LINUX or Mac).

[OAKS]

RAID was initially designed for performance, rather than backups, but has become increasingly popular in server backup setups, especially RAID 5. I don't like relying on it because you will have to get the exact same hard drives to ensure compatibility if one breaks (you don't have to be exact, but results vary), and if it's a year or two later, who knows if you'll be able to find that same hard drive. You pretty much have to pick up a couple of extra drives when you make your initial purchase.

I'd go with an decent sized hard drive (40-80 GB or so) for your operating system and program files, and then a large hard drive for your media, website stuff, and anything else. If your system drive crashes or you need to reinstall windows, etc, you don't have much to worry about other than repopulating your program settings. I go with a combination of Dual Layer DVD backup and an old 250GB hard drive in a usb enclosure I hook up every couple of weeks for backups.

With 300 GB SATA hard drives around $100 (or 500GB around $250) , it's pretty easy to add more storage nowadays.

Windows Media Center is essentially XP Home with a few media additions. I'd go with Pro over Home or MC if it's not an extra cost. You get a few more networking features (file sharing over domains), remote desktop, encrypting file systems, etc.

Comparisons are here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/eval ... mpare.mspx

[Sonny]

The Dell DataSafe solution I was considered is listed below. Don't know if this is worth it or if anyone has any experience with it. Seemed like a pretty easy backup solution with minimal involvement required by the end use.

The Benefits of Dell DataSafeTM

For the Home User
- With the increasing popularity of digital media such as digital photos, digital music, videos and the like, consumers have a growing need for a simple and affordable method to protect their cherished data.
- Dell DataSafeTM is intended to offer a safe and simple way to help protect your memories and songs from damage due to accidents, system crashes and other disasters.

For the Small Business User
- With the increasing need for small businesses to remain cost-effective and competitive, downtime due to system issues, virus/spyware attacks and user errors is becoming a greater competitive hazard for companies.
- Dell DataSafeTM can help avoid costly downtime due to system issues, allowing you to restore business critical data quickly and easily.

Q & A


What is Dell DataSafeTM ?
Dell DataSafe uses Norton Ghost 10 software from Symantec® and Intel® Matrix Storage Technology to create a robust level of data protection for your files.

Why would I need a solution like this?
Even though today's PCs are very reliable devices, there is still a risk that potential issues could occur. Threats such as viruses, corrupted software and possible hardware failure magnify the need for a simple, automatic and reliable data protection solution.1

How easy is it to use?
Dell DataSafe works automatically to protect your data. You can also personalize the settings if you would like to change the frequency of backups or to backup to other locations such as DVD, CD, external hard drives, etc…

What are the key features of this product?
Simple data protection from many software and hardware related failures. System recovery from software and hardware failures and system roll back to previous data points.1

How does this solution vary from other data protection solutions?
DataSafe combines hardware and software protection to give you a higher level of data protection. This enables you to continue to function through many serious hard drive failures and to recover quickly in the event of a software problem. Many products on the market today only offer a small portion of this functionality.

[UofMLaxGoalie11]

I found a nice little option for your computer. I hope to have mine soon.

[Adam G]

Thanks for the Dell Outlet link, laxfan25. I just picked up a previously ordered new Inspiron for a great deal. I never knew about the outlet before, and it saved me around $300.