Partioned, second hand computers

testingeek

I looking to buy three second hand machines. I want to be able to partition them and place multiple operating systems on them.

The specs for each machine would be:
Memory no less than 256 MB, HardDrive: hard drive size doesnt really matter), Networkable, Internet Accessible.

I need a one monitor and keyboard with a switch between the three machines

machine 1 will take Windows (XP, Vista at least)
machine 2 will be for Unix (Solaris, Linux)
machine 3 will be a MAC (10.5, 10.4, 10.3)

Can anyone recommend a shop where I can buy the machines and even better recommend someone willing to setup the machines for me?

thanks

godskitchen

Where are you?

Mr. Presentable

There's often cheap PCs on Adverts.ie

testingeek

I'm in Rathfarnham, Dublin

mande01

What are you up to?

If it's testing, you are probably better off using vmware, cheaper, more efficient, can share hardware resources between OS's, less space, less power, can have all booted up at once, etc...

or try to get laptops.

I'm in waterford, with a room full of old PCs & laptops. I really need to clear them all out and get one or two good pc's

Regards,
Derry

Teamhar

I'll have a few old machines going up onto adverts.ie tomorrow along with a load of Cisco gear. I'll post again when I've spec'd them up and let you know whats there.

Would also go along with VMWare as the best option for test environments. Dualboot is going the way of the dodo.

Tara

testingeek

thanks for the advice on vmware.I'll look into it...would you suggest getting one big decent machine? Care to throw up any specs?

Teamhar

Hiya,

I'll be posting a second-hand Dell Dimension 8100 up onto adverts.ie over the next couple of days. Basic spec is P4, 768MB RAM and 150GB hard disk. Solid machine, good for messing about. If you're buying something new, the RAM is what you're going to be concerned with. Disks are pretty big now and proc will be fine too.

Nice thing with VMWare is you can back-up your "machines" and keep them safe. If your main box goes down, all you need do is install VMWare again and restore your backed up machines. Lifesaver.

Tara

CiaranC

testingeek wrote: »

thanks for the advice on vmware.I'll look into it...would you suggest getting one big decent machine? Care to throw up any specs?

Buy yourself a low end server from HP or Dell and use a virtualisation solution.

Teamhar

Overkill.

I was running 4 machines all at once (including Server 2003 Standard and SQL Server 2005) on a HP XP Pro laptop with 2GB RAM and a Centrino proc.

Tara