For Hugo :)

Luckily dabs is off line as I foolishly thought I'd just hover over that 'add to cart' 'checkout' button and just see how much willpower I had, which would have pretty silly as I have an amount measured in micrograms.

I like the VMware offering, it's the way I'm definitely going to go but it still niggles that one has to settle for a slightly lower spec for the bucks than one could get with a self build, would have to add to the storage and you can run down 512mb quite quickly, that would have to be bumped up to a gig, I think that i'm also going to go for a mid range NAS to provide storage.

I want the Mac Pro @

Yeah, you would need to bump the memory up, probably to 2gigs. Apple seem to charge a lot for the memory too (their own upgrade options on the harddisk are extortionate compared to retail prices for similar disks).

Neat thing about the mac mini is its low power requirements and almost silent operation.

Does thirds into a Mac Pro make give us each more than a single mac mini

Quite like the quite hum of my machine, something comforting about it

should be able to upgrade the memory with Corsair offerings or similar.

Surprised by the low spindle speed of the Mac minis; fast 7200rpm drives make a whole heap of difference, I remember when I installed a pair of Seagate Barracudas just how much nippier the system was, and so quiet I thought they were faulty units

*sigh* you see here's where we start hitting the proprietary bug bears, years ago upgrading memory was a pain due to irksome stuff such as having to occupy certain slots in a set order, or having to have matched pairs etc, which all faded away as memory and system boards became more sophisticated.

Looks like the intel Mac Minis require matched pairs of memory so with the installed 512mb and only two slots unless you want to only take it to 1GB you have to throw away the installed memory which is a bit of a waste of money.

It's little things like that that irritate me about buying proprietary systems.

It's using 2.5" hard disks - lap top disks, so the choice isn't so good. Seagate does a 160GB at 7200rpm here. Let me know if you find it for sale anywhere. Otherwise you'll need to settle for 100GB from Seagate or Hitachi.

I don't think the memory "has" to be matched. Their 3GB option uses a 2GB+1GB sticks. But doesn't DDR2 need to be in both slots to get optimum performance.

Maybe it doesn't then, slightly confused though as an upgrade site definitely talks about matching, Looking at the specs at dabs doesn't state how many memory slots though. I think you're right DDR2 does need to utilise both slots for optimal but it's not mandatory.

Can't find that 160GB Seagate only the 100 or smaller offerings.

Starting to feel as though there are all these tiny impediments in the way

For Dual Channel mode you need to run two or four matched sticks in the right memory slots.

Yes. Or to quote from Crucial's website, in response to the question, "Do I have to install matching pairs?"

Needless to say I'm running 2048mb of matched-pair dual channel Corsair XMS2 PC6400 ram in Dual Channel mode on my brand new Asus P5W Dh-Deluxe motherboard and new Core 2 Duo e6600

/gloat /gloat

You know TPH, I would have figured you for a P5B-E or a Gigabyte GA-965P-DS4 with a QX6700, PC8000 Ram and dual Crossfire cards

Yeah but I bet he's got a really tiny hard drive

Ouch

Oi, 1x74Gb Raptor X and 1x 150Gb Raptor X thankyou very much

Quad cores are a complete waste of money, PC8500 ram (the 1,066 MHz stuff) is a complete waste of money, and my 6800GS copes fine with Source With DX10 around the corner buying a 7800 or 8800 for

That's nothing to be ashamed of (but it's a big man that will admit to it), size isn't everything it's how you configure it

Nothing special for me, I'm afraid, simply set up exactly as my PATA ide drivers were, the 74gb as master and 150gb as slave. None of that raid/striping/parity nonsense for me

nufink wrong with doing a bit of reduntating arrays of inexpensive disks especially raid 5 nice bit of striping for that extra turn of speed, you should have bought two small disks to stripe for the OS