New Year New PC

It is now 2009 and with the new year comes the notion of purchasing a new PC. I think this is a great idea but is it really necessary? It is true that the cost of basic office PC's has dropped quite a bit lately and replacing the machines can be written off as a capital expense. Let's face it, IT budgets are constantly being slashed and most companies need to prolong the life of their existing equipment. A few recommendations I can offer are as follows:

• Upgrade the memory on all existing PC's to 2GB, if the machine will allow it. This will improve performance immediately. Memory prices have dropped drastically. Older 1GB memory upgrades of PC2-4200 range from $18 to $50 per chip.
• Replace any old CRT monitors that may be in the office. These consume energy and the cost of the new LCD monitors is so low now that the decision should be easy to make. The average cost on a 17 inch LCD monitor, which has the same screen size as a 19 inch CRT monitor, is $115 or less for a standard business class monitor.
• Add more storage with a NAS device to your server room. Although this is a band-aid solution for a much bigger problem. This will allow you to add more storage at a relatively low cost. The Buffalo DriveStation Flexnet 1TB NAS Server can be added for $197.33 from MNJ Technologies. https://www.mnjtech.com/indexhigh.html

I hope that everyone has a great 2009!