New Computer - please help

[gil850]

Well, I think it's finally time to upgrade. Can someone suggest a good system for me for around $1,000 (hopefully a little less). All I want to do is surf the web and edit photos (probably with CS2 or CS3) and store a bunch of files. Not really sure where to start so if someone could give me some suggestions to get me started that'd be great.

Thanks in advance.

Gil

 

[foulshot]

Don't go to a chain store IMHO. Find a place that builds from scratch or do it yourself if you feel comfortable.

I'd go Dual Core, at least 3.2Ghz, 2Gig Ram to start and 2 HD's. Put all you photos on one drive and then your progams on the other. This will increase you speed in CS2/Bridge.

I have a 3.0GHZ Dual Core, 1 Gig Ram(need more!!), 16x DVD burner, 160 GB HD as the main and store all my photos on a 160GB External Seagate(which is almost full). You can pick up LCD monitors pretty reasonably these days too. I'm running XP PRo/CS2 and I can open 10meg files pretty fast.

Someone else will have to chime in about Windows Vista and CS2.

 

[gil850]

Thanks foulshot - I heard Vista was a memory hog so that 2 Gig RAM almost becomes a necessity.

 

[quailsroost]

Dell, spec out what you want and let them build it and you will have some warranty and they are usually cheaper. I have had two built by local gurus and neither of them were as good as an off the shelf major brand, obviously others have had better experiences with local gurus than I have, just my idea.

 

[wtnhunt]

Built mine through Dell as well, and only ended up running under $700 total into it by the time I was all done after adding a firewire pcie card for my videos. Have a pentium 4 processor and a 3 ghz processor, kind of wish I had gone dual core as well. Also wish I would have put 2 gigs of memory instead of 1 when I placed the order, would have been cheaper that way. Dell configures the systems with optional card readers too for minimal cost which is a must have in my opinion.

 

[Lan-Lord]

I've been contemplating a new computer also.. But I decided to amp up my current computer instead, to save a few bucks, and maybe get by a little while longer. I ended up maxing out my memory to 2 GB, and I am looking into a high speed and redundant (RAID) external hard drive now.

Newegg.com had a great price on my memory. They were the cheapest vendor, free shipping, and no tax.

Let us know what you decide to go with.

 

[Aeonstar]

Something to keep in mind. This comes from experience, bad experience. Never ever trust a hard drive with your images. You will have a catastrophic failure and loose everything forever. So often i hear people getting new systems with one huge drive or maybe even two drives one for just images. This works great till the day you have a problem. Two ways to solve this problem are redundant drive arrays aka RAID ( two or more drives with the same info on each drive so that if one dies the others can recover) or regularly burn images to a DVD. Just whatever you do Never trust one hard drive with the countless hours of work and money we all put into our photos. RAID arrays are not as scary as they sound so do not be afraid to go that way. DVD-R disks are cheep now and almost every new computer can have one for a very small price. Yes i have lost some things that i can not replace lesson learned and never again


Bill Wright

after a quick check online a new RAID controller card (what you plug the drives into) prices as follows
RAID card 100$
two 250GIG SATA drives 150$ you can even find them less then that.
or
DVD burner 49$

peace of mind priceless$

 

[Lan-Lord]

Not trying to deviate too far off topic, but this is what I'm currently looking at getting as far as fast/redundant storage. Iomega Network Attached Storage (NAS) for $389.

• 500 GB
• RAID
• Firewire
• USB 2.0
• Wireless
• Ethernet 100Mb/s

I can plug my laptop into it via firewire, or access it on my network via a share drive.

Also, one thing that is important to me is NAS gives me another level of added security of my data. It would be easy for someone to break into my house and steal my computer(s) thus not only stealing personal fiels (photos, etc) but also stealing important business data (which happens to be worth a lot to me). With a NAS, I can hide it or place the drive in my closet which has a dead-bolt on it. (and I can easily take it with me the next time I evacuate due to a CAT 5 hurricane bearing down on the Gulf Coast)

 

[wapiti]

When I got into DSLR last year I bought a 300gig external hard drive for storing my images. It crashed with 20 gig of data. It was under warranty but they would not guarantee recovering my data. I didn't return it with hopes of recovering the data somehow (they would have simply replaced the drive).

Now I burn everything to DVD...

 

[wtnhunt]

Have always burned my picture files to dvd's as well. May not be as fast as having them on a hard drive, but personally feel safer with them on dvd's.