Kari,
Thanks for the password app. suggestion, and this additional info. One of my Shuttle XPC boxes has a Xeon cpu. I generally go with WD Black HDDs, and have a never used Samsung SSD around here somewhere that I was planning to try out in some future build. I've tried to add either USB-3 or e-SATA port mini-cards to some older desktop systems, and found them to be incompatible with the motherboard. So, not having that issue in the future would be a plus. I've not encountered any external devices using Thunderbolt, as yet.
I find myself needing to fill in occasionally for someone much better versed in all this stuff, on the support end, who is now out of the picture due to a serious illness. (One user makes heavy use of ProShow Gold, which can make pretty heavy
demands on a system, when huge numbers of photos and music tracks are being stored and manipulated. These are 5 year old systems at this point, running XP, so their days are doubly numbered.) Running a VM would also be involved here, with any replacements -- so I need to get up to speed on that pretty quickly. And that reminds me: did you -- or someone else on the list -- say I can leave an already installed XP Mode in place, while trying out VMWare as an alternative solution, without concern about conflicts ? (This is on a different computer, running W7 x64.) I only got the rudiments of XP Mode going, and it was not entirely satisfactory, for Xy or in general -- some of which was discussed here.
Jordan
From: Kari Eveli
To: xywrite@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2014 10:25 AM
Subject: Re: I need a new desktop computer -- Recommendations?
Xeon is for servers, but as such it has very good memory management.
Coupled with server-grade hard disks and a SSD this is really very fast.
These beasts are made mainly for 3-D modeling, but they are great for
virtualization and word processing. All disks can be removed/replaced
without tools. Plenty of expansion potential. The HP-made motherboard is
very compatible.
Thunderbolt refers to brand-new 10 Gbps connections between a PC and
peripherals (displays, disks and so on).
Best regards,
Kari Eveli