Hi I would like some suggestions

[MikeyB420]

Hi All,

Looking for suggestions for a (future and bullet proof?) reliable desktop system, also ancillary items
which would be able to store and recover my amassed data from over the years into one place. I have
been using Toshiba laptops for the last eight years having lost all my computing equipment in a fire!

Budget: Max £1500 (maybe pushable for monitor and the like?)

Problems:

No.1 I have 5000+ colour slides to scan (my ageing Minolta Scan Dual 3) gave up the ghost a few days
ago!

No.2 I have various hard drives taken from dead machines which I would like to retrieve data from,
mostly, 2.5" laptop Sata's.

No.3 I've got confused with the onwards march of technology! (hence this request!)

Logic tells me that I need a large hard drive, I certainly want something that boot's quickly and I may
want to do some light gaming?

Best regards,

MikeyB420

 

[LuckyBenski]

To be broad: you'll absolutely want/need a solid state drive to boot from and put major software on. It's worth having larger slow storage (spinning hard disks) for photos etc. I'd also recommend a backup method so a second hard drive or cloud storage. A 1-2TB external drive could be worked into your budget at around £50 or so. Develop a good backup regime!

Regarding negative scanning, I'd say you'll need a new negative scanner as i don't know a better way to handle that. If not available new I'm sure there are second hand options.

For data recovery, laptop hard drives and desktop ones have had the same connectors (SATA) since at least pre-2010. You should be able to hook those up internally for maximum transfer speeds, just while you're in the process. You could alternatively buy a USB3 enclosure or dock for convenience longer term.

For light gaming, the new AMD Ryzen series cpus have models ending in G (2200G, 2400G etc) with respectable integrated graphics. That said, I think your budget will stretch to a much better CPU and separate graphics card. That will give you more performance now, longer useful expected life, and more flexible upgrade options later.

I'd consider monitor requirements if you work with photos: do you need colour accuracy? Is size and consistency more important than resolution and refresh rate? Etc

When it comes to the actual hardware specifics I'll leave that to others as people love to spec up a build on here! If you get no response try a thread titled "Spec me: long lasting photo/light gaming rig" or similar