Looking for some advice on re-organizing my home/office setup.
A bit of background... I currently do most of my work from home on my C2D MBP (2.33). I have it setup on a Griffin Elevator, plugged into a Belkin USB/Firewire hub, with an external keyboard & mouse. I do a lot of work in XP through Boot Camp (haven't tried Parallels/VMWare just yet), but switch between Windows & OSX as the need arises. I only install applications on the Windows partition & keep all project information on the OSX side (using Macdrive to access them). As far as backups go, I have an external Lacie Rugged FW drive that I use with SuperDuper to create a copy of the OSX partition every week. I also use an AEBS for broadband/wireless networking.
I'm in the middle of refurbishing a room that I can finally call my office. In the next few months I plan to buy a new monitor & a desktop workstation (that I can switch to in emergencies if the MBP is giving me trouble). Haven't made the PC/Mac decision on that yet, but its a few months away.
Recently I've noticed that both partitions on the MBP are getting kinda full. I'd always anticipated moving all my data from the OSX partition to the 'backup' FW drive, then hooking up a NAS device to the AEBS for incremental backups. I'd also like to move my email & itunes so I can access them from any computer on the network.
Basically, my question boils down to whether a NAS would be sufficient for my needs, or if I need to think about using another PC as a server? One other question... is there a straightforward way of centralizing my mail so I can access it from both the Windows side (via Outlook) & the OSX side (via Mail)?
All advice is greatly appreciated.
James.
A bit of background... I currently do most of my work from home on my C2D MBP (2.33). I have it setup on a Griffin Elevator, plugged into a Belkin USB/Firewire hub, with an external keyboard & mouse. I do a lot of work in XP through Boot Camp (haven't tried Parallels/VMWare just yet), but switch between Windows & OSX as the need arises. I only install applications on the Windows partition & keep all project information on the OSX side (using Macdrive to access them). As far as backups go, I have an external Lacie Rugged FW drive that I use with SuperDuper to create a copy of the OSX partition every week. I also use an AEBS for broadband/wireless networking.
I'm in the middle of refurbishing a room that I can finally call my office. In the next few months I plan to buy a new monitor & a desktop workstation (that I can switch to in emergencies if the MBP is giving me trouble). Haven't made the PC/Mac decision on that yet, but its a few months away.
Recently I've noticed that both partitions on the MBP are getting kinda full. I'd always anticipated moving all my data from the OSX partition to the 'backup' FW drive, then hooking up a NAS device to the AEBS for incremental backups. I'd also like to move my email & itunes so I can access them from any computer on the network.
Basically, my question boils down to whether a NAS would be sufficient for my needs, or if I need to think about using another PC as a server? One other question... is there a straightforward way of centralizing my mail so I can access it from both the Windows side (via Outlook) & the OSX side (via Mail)?
All advice is greatly appreciated.
James.