I currently use a PII333 with a mach64 (ATI Xpert@work) video card for my personal e-mail, web-surfing, etc. It also acts as my masq for the rest of my computers and a while back I started to use it as a file/print server. My set-up is not the best, so I plan to revamp everything. My background is graphics/video production, so this has been more of a side interest than anything, so, no doubt I'm a hack lacking in some fundamentals, splease excuse me if I say something that just sounds stupid. I have WinNT and Mac G4 computers that I use for my work, and I have been using SAMBA and netatalk with success. I want to build a dedicated file/print server, and use the other machine for e-mail/surfing/masq. The server will routinely move files of several hundred MB. For personal use, should I upgrade to a PII 400 or 450, or use that for the file and print server? I guess I mean would the extra processor muscle and bus speed be well utilized with the server, or would I be happier using it for my personal stuff. The LAN is very small, and supports 1 person normally, but 2 or 3 on occassion. So, yeah, light use. I figure the PII333 could serve without difficulty, and I'd probably be happier with the increased speed as my personal computer. I want a snappier personal machine, and a reliable server. I plan to upgrade the personal video card from the ATI to a Creative 32MB Savage4. So, I'd have either the ATI or an even crappier 4MB S3 for the server. I love how SuSE can put to good use hardware that I hate under Windows- like that ATI card, which sucked with windows but has been decent under SuSE. Or this Savage4 card which I don't like under Windows. Also, my personal computer is a bit of a thrasher. What are the things I could implement to make a snappier machine? Right now I'm all ATA drives for the obvious money reasons. Does SCSI make that much difference that I'd want to deal with the expense and set-up? Can I nullify the performance of the ATA drive by going to a PIII 500 or 600 processor for the personal machine? What the order of performance improvements for my personal machine? Processor? SCSI? Better video card? I'd like to avoid SCSI, since it's expensive and my demands are somewhat reasonable, but if it's the one thing keeping me from a nice, quick, personal machine, I'd consider it. The server will almost certainly be based on ATA IBM 7200rpm 60GB drives, hopefully two of them using a 3ware RAID card. Thanks, I know it's all over the place, but so is my thinking on this! -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/