I have been given a complete Acer pc with Vista installed & I can link it to my current one running XP with a cross over cable. But what would I then be able to do with it, will it just be a larger external hard drive or will it be like a partition of my current one. Or would I be better stripping it & installing the hard drive in my tower. I would really like to make some use of it rather than just stick it in the loft.
linked p.cs
- Thread starter jj4091
- Start date
Sponsored Links
if all you are looking for is extra storage, you would be better off taking the hdd from it and putting it in your main system. to power a full computer just to use as storage seems crazy then you can run it from the same psu as your main system.
depending on the spec of the system you can do some pretty cool things now with regards to media centre systems that you connect to your TV for streaming and such. but that just depends on what tv you have, the current smart tv's make life much easier for that sort of thing. you could but a video capture card from ebay and make a cheap cctv recorder?? many possibility's really, it all depends what sort of thing your after.
depending on the spec of the system you can do some pretty cool things now with regards to media centre systems that you connect to your TV for streaming and such. but that just depends on what tv you have, the current smart tv's make life much easier for that sort of thing. you could but a video capture card from ebay and make a cheap cctv recorder?? many possibility's really, it all depends what sort of thing your after.
Sponsored Links
I'd chuck linux on it and run it as a server offering file storage and media sharing personally.
Which PC has the better processor, ram and disk (size and speed)?
Keep the best one and just take the disk out the other one.
If the RAM is compatible then run with the biggest combination you can. If not choose the box which has the most RAM as that is more important than similar dated processors. Note too that Vista requires more RAM than XP to run adequately.
Tune the system such that the TEMP location and swap file is stored on the second disk. If you keep the XP box and have disk one as one big partition C: then install the Acer disk as D:. Your temp variables would then be D:\TEMP, swapfile D:\ You could also use the D: drive as a location for backups of your data or the complete image of C:
One other thing to note is that Microsoft support for XP will end on 8th April 2014. This means that they won't provides updates and patches such that you could be vulnerable to exploits. For that reason you may want to keep the Vista machine.
Keep the best one and just take the disk out the other one.
If the RAM is compatible then run with the biggest combination you can. If not choose the box which has the most RAM as that is more important than similar dated processors. Note too that Vista requires more RAM than XP to run adequately.
Tune the system such that the TEMP location and swap file is stored on the second disk. If you keep the XP box and have disk one as one big partition C: then install the Acer disk as D:. Your temp variables would then be D:\TEMP, swapfile D:\ You could also use the D: drive as a location for backups of your data or the complete image of C:
One other thing to note is that Microsoft support for XP will end on 8th April 2014. This means that they won't provides updates and patches such that you could be vulnerable to exploits. For that reason you may want to keep the Vista machine.
Never in a million years in my professional opinion! Vista was a latter-day Windows Me. It should NEVER have been released! Look how long it lasted before Windows 7 was rushed out. Windows XP will not stop working in April, and at the moment WIN7 licences/coas can be bought for under £45 on e-bay. Buy one now before the XP users decide to upgrade in May! BTW, a Windows 7 licence key can be used on either 32 or 64 bit OSes.
- Joined
- 31 Aug 2005
- Messages
- 4,063
- Reaction score
- 368
- Country
As a fairly devout pc and electrical enthusiast ill give you my personal opinion.
fF it's been given to you its most probably pretty worthless anyway, running Vista is a horrific O/S doesn't help either.
Options:
Use the hard disk in your newer machine. (not really recommended)
How old is the disk, which brings us onto, how reliable is it? Ok all good to use it as a temp/swap/junk drive, but dont go making it an expansion to your valuable photo's and movies to find it dies 2days/weeks/months later.
Use the pc as a media device. (not really recommended)
There are many devices now on the market down to the size of a USB stick than can run and decode HD, something this pile of may not even be capable of.
ON top of that there's effiency, running the old switch mode PSU to use this old PC to do something relatively CPU intensive for something it wasn't designed for will most probbaly cost you more in electricity paying for that device you should of bought in the first place.
The only thing id say it's really good for is someone who can't afford a newer pc at the moment but is saving for something better, an interim solution. OR wiping it and installing an open source firewall proxy or if you're lucky add mutiple drives and build it as a dedicated NAS.(network attached storage)
Sorry to sound so negative. But ive been there and have the graveyard of many old pc's etc to know what is and isn't worth it!
fF it's been given to you its most probably pretty worthless anyway, running Vista is a horrific O/S doesn't help either.
Options:
Use the hard disk in your newer machine. (not really recommended)
How old is the disk, which brings us onto, how reliable is it? Ok all good to use it as a temp/swap/junk drive, but dont go making it an expansion to your valuable photo's and movies to find it dies 2days/weeks/months later.
Use the pc as a media device. (not really recommended)
There are many devices now on the market down to the size of a USB stick than can run and decode HD, something this pile of may not even be capable of.
ON top of that there's effiency, running the old switch mode PSU to use this old PC to do something relatively CPU intensive for something it wasn't designed for will most probbaly cost you more in electricity paying for that device you should of bought in the first place.
The only thing id say it's really good for is someone who can't afford a newer pc at the moment but is saving for something better, an interim solution. OR wiping it and installing an open source firewall proxy or if you're lucky add mutiple drives and build it as a dedicated NAS.(network attached storage)
Sorry to sound so negative. But ive been there and have the graveyard of many old pc's etc to know what is and isn't worth it!
Just a word of warning before going down this route.
I did exactly that for a second computer a few months after win7 came out. Auction, actually a Buy it Now, emphasised the fact they were 100% genuine.
Six months later it was blocked by Microsoft as having been stolen from corporate company!
Sponsored Links
