reducing pc's

A

annilation

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
242
I am getting ready to move into a new place that is smaller than where I live now. I have to give up my office so I need to downsize pc's. Right now I have 6 pc's running. There is my main gaming box, firewall, file server, torrent download, 2 test boxes. I thought with vmware I could get down to 3 machines and might drop the firewall. Whats the best way of consolidating pc's? Also I have a spare 820d p4 sitting on my desk now so I was hoping I could use it for the box and use virtual machines. I run windows home server on my fileserver can you run that in vmware? Also I use utorrent for my downloads so I could use a linux distro (gui needed) for just downloads. It would need to be very easy to use since I am a windows only guy.
 
I see no reason why your gaming box can't also be a file server. It does not require a server OS to be a file server... only a properly secured share, and it is not very resource intesive. Also, the firewall can be done with a simple peice of hardware like a broadband router and does not really need a PC. I have no comment about the torrent box. Since you are probably downloading illegal stuff with it, I'll just stay out of that part of the discussion.

Also, Microsoft has made Virtual PC 2004 free so all your testing can be done on a single box using VPC2004. Just be generous on the RAM if you want to run more than one virtual machine at a time.
 
My problem is I run normally 3-4 test machines at the same time so I would need the main pc to run 3-5 vm's at the same time while doing other stuff. Thats why I was trying to do it all on a 2nd machine. I have used Virtual PC by Microsoft and its okay I am just not much of a fan of it. I really like VMware compared to it cause of all the features. I also have a license for workstation edition that I coan use at home so I would be legal (it was a freebie at a training) I use Virtual PC at work cause my main workstation is Vista and I have xp pro as a vm in case I need something that only runs in xp. I find it limiting and lacking features though.
 
Well what are the specs of all the 6 PCs? Just curious.
 
The specs for main machines are:

main:
820d (soon to be q6600)
3.5gb pc667
8800gts 320
2x 160gb raid 0
1x 320gb hd
2x samsung dvd+rws
vista ultimate 64bit

fileserver:
amd64 3200+
asus a8n sli deluxe
1gb ram
2x 250gb
4x 500gb
server 2003

Firewall:
800mhz PIII
512mb ram
40gb hd
old gateway
smoothwall for os

Downloads/ftp:
2.8GHz Celeron
768mb ram
500gb hd
old compaq

2x Test Machines (same specs)
amd64 3200+
1gb ram
80gb sata hd
intergrated vid card
I think msi mobo
 
why not move your download server to your file server?

What's the point of having them separate?
 
sitheris said:
why not move your download server to your file server?

What's the point of having them separate?
Click to expand...

I agree, this is what I have. My dedicated LAN server for gaming is also my file server and my bittorrent whore. Just make sure you have gigabit networking available and you won't have much of an overhead if all three are running simultaneously. Plus if you add another ATA card (if you need to), you can shove all of your hard drives in there for huge expansion.
 
The only reason I had them separate was because of virus/spyware. Less chances of it fubaring the main OS. Yea I have all gigabit for my switches and nics.

So far it looking like I can move the test boxes, downloads box to my file server. So I was thinking server 2003 r2 for main os. VMWare running:

vm - file server (windows home server)
vm - torrents/ftp (windows xp, or maybe linux lightweight easy distro- any recommendation?)
vm - test box 1 (server 2003)
vm - test box 2 (server 2003)
vm - test box 3 (solaris/linux distro)

Would an 820d p4 handle this load okay since I have one laying around or do I need to get something like a duo-core? Also I figure I would need 3-4gb ram for running it also I would imagine.
 
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