2nd opinion please

[RLancon]

For my first post I have a somewhat long question and I am seeking some second opinions.
First off .....I use computers, not configure them. That said ---in the configuration dept I am a complete moron. I do however have a neighbors genius 17 year old that keeps me jammin'....Here is my setup in my home...


I have 3 dual boot Laptops Windows XP Pro & Suse Pro Linux (Wireless Netgear)
3 Desktops with XP pro (wired)
2 Desktops with Suse Pro (wired)
A Lazerjet printer HP 940c (usb)
A 1260 Nec Lazer printer (parrallel)
OkiData Led thermal printer (wired)
All desktops have 19 inch LCD's
DSL with Sprint, Earthlink..
Everything is networked together, prints, computers linked, works great..

My neighbors wiz kid genius 17 year old that helps me keep this getup humming like a top goes off to college next year (scary) and tells me I should get a server.

He tells me that I need one forth of this set up and that this is way overkill.
His intent is to utilize freeBSD for the server setup...
Money is not so much an issue as is dependablilty and long term usage.
I am clueless as to how a server would help my current situation. He claims it will.
Everything I have now functions great.
Will a server really make that much of a difference?
Is it worth the effort in terms of payoff and performance?
Here is what I selected.........

Any opinions are greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

Ray










Chassis :
Chieftec Tower Chassis (Black)
Power Supply :
400 Watt Power Supply
Motherboard :
Gigabyte 8IPE1000 800MHz P4 w/AGP LAN (478 Pin)
Processor :
Intel Pentium 4 3.0Ghz 800Mhz FSB 1Mb Cache
Memory 1 :
512MB DDR400 PC3200 Memory (Use For DDR333)
Memory 2 :
512MB DDR400 PC3200 Memory (Use For DDR333)
Memory 3 :
None
Memory 4 :
None
Controller Card 1 :
On-Board SATA150 Ports (2 Drives)
Controller Card 2 :
None
Hot Swap Trays 1 :
None
Hot Swap Trays 2 :
None
Hard Drive 1 :
200Gb 7200RPM 8Mb Buffer Serial ATA150 HDD
Hard Drive 2 :
200Gb 7200RPM 8Mb Buffer Serial ATA150 HDD
Hard Drive 3 :
200Gb 7200RPM 8Mb Buffer Serial ATA150 HDD
Hard Drive 4 :
None
Hard Drive 5 :
None
Hard Drive 6 :
None
Hard Drive 7 :
None
Hard Drive 8 :
None
Removable Media 1 :
1.44MB Floppy Drive (Black)
Removable Media 2 :
None
CD Drive 1 :
52X32X52 CDRW / 16X DVD ROM IDE Combo Drive
CD Drive 2 :
None
Video Card 1 :
NVidia GeForce FX5700LE 256MB DDR 8X AGP VGA + DVI Video
Video Card 2 :
None
Network Card 1 :
On-Board Gigabit (10/100/1000) Ethernet Controller
Network Card 2 :
Realtek 8139 10/100BT PCI Ethernet Card
Modem :
None
Sound Card 1 :
On-Board Realtek ALC650 Audio Codec w/AC97 Audio Port
Sound Card 2 :
Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live 5.1 PCI
Keyboard :
3-in-1 Combo Black KB + Mouse + 2pc. Speakers
Mouse :
None
Speakers :
None
Operating System :
None
Software :
None

 

[SlothX311]

I am clueless as to how a server would help my current situation. He claims it will.
Everything I have now functions great.

everything you have now functions great....

Will a server really make that much of a difference?

in your case...yes

Is it worth the effort in terms of payoff and performance?

depending on how "all out" you go....yes, in other words, if you spend thousands of dollars on a dual opteron or dual xeon processor high end server just to manage 5 desktops 3 laptops and some printers i would have to smack you

i would just get one stick of 1024MB (1gig) rather than getting 2 sticks of 512 MB and taking up a bank that can be later used for upgrading.....600 GB for hard drive space is a bit hefty....unless your planning to boot, store, and work from these hard drives, you could easily trim that to a 200 GB and have plenty of space.....not saying more hard drive space is bad, just not nessasary.....the processor looks good, 1mb L2 cache is sexy, yada yada.....oh and id go for sumthing a little more than a 400 watt power supply, itl get you by.....for now! but with a gig of ram, 3 hd's and a 3 Ghz + processor your gonna eventually need more wattage, esspecially if its some generic power supply that comes with the case, you wouldnt want to hurt all of that sexy equiptment by having the power supply go bad on you....id go with a 600 watt or so