New house/new computer networking and build questions

[The Dark Side of Will]

Some of you have mentioned things about computer builds before...

I bought 2 houses in 2009. I offered on the second in February and the first in March or April. I closed on the first in May, just before I left for Iraq and my dad closed on the second in November via power of attorney while I was in Iraq.

I had a trustworthy contractor rehab both houses and they were both rented to good tenants when I came back from Baghdad, so I just rented a room elsewhere and let the tenants buy me houses.

The tenant in the second house turned in his 30 day notice at the beginning of September, so I decided I'd move in there. The big draw, of course, is the 3+ car garage. The garage has enough floor space to hold 3 cars, and is very deep, so I call it a 3+. However, it "only" has a 2 car wide door. I'll keep the door width so that I'll have workshop space in addition to the ability to keep two cars inside.

The house and garage are still a bit messy, so I'll hold off on overall pics until they're presentable. The upper level had hardwoods in the common areas when I bought the place, but the kitchen was a disaster. The kitchen was rehabbed in order to rent the place, but I just cleaned up the carpets in the upstairs bedrooms. I just had hardwoods installed in those three rooms last week.

Anyway, I'm looking at networking the house, which means NAS, router and decent PC.

NAS:
A coworker really likes the Drobo for home NAS, so I was figuring I'd get one of those.
http://www.drobo.com/
Thoughts?

Router:
I really don't know much about routers... I figured I'd get started with a high end wireless unit. Suggestions?

PC:
I'm looking at something that will be upgradeable and give me a long service life. I'm not looking for the newest and fastest. The way I've built computers in the past is to find the "knee" of the price/performance curve and buy each component at that point.
RAM is probably the easiest example (pulling numbers out of my @$$): If a 128 MB module is $12.80 (10MB/$), a 512 MB module is $57 (9MB/$), a 1024 MB module is $128 (8 MB/$) and a 2048 MB module is $400 (5 MB/$), I'd buy at the 1024 level.

That means I get the most recent technology for which I'm not paying the "newest and best" premium. Even though the 128 MB module has more MB/$ than the 1024, the 128 will have a very limited useful life, as it's already obsolete. This philosophy has worked well for me previously.

Obviously, the case and the motherboard are going to be the longest lived portions of the system and should be top shelf components from the beginning.

I'm not familiar with many of the subtleties of the current crop of motherboards, chipsets and peripherals. I'd like advice on what boards are the good ones right now, how to avoid bottlenecks and general system build info.

I don't have demanding needs for a PC... MS Project, light CAD, videos and *MAYBE* getting back into the stock market are the uses I expect for it, so there's no sense in building a high end gaming machine. I *DO* however, want multiple monitors--like FOUR or more so I never run out of desktop space.

[Series8217]

PC
There are up to date build lists for PC's at the performance/cost "knee". Check the Something Awful forums, Toms Hardware, etc.

Multiple Displays
AMD makes workstation cards (FirePro series) that can run a large number of monitors from a single card. I recommend copying someone's existing working setup, including the exact graphics card and monitors they used. Otherwise you may run into weird problems with some combinations of monitors and graphics cards. AMD's EyeFinity can be confusing to set up, and copying someone else's configuration will make sure that everything you buy is going to work. AMD's own setup tool doesn't even work all the time, but you can give it a try:
http://www.amd.com/us/products/technolo ... et-up.aspx

NAS
I have set up and operated QNAP and Synology NAS systems for work and I have a Synology at home. The Synology software is amazing. The QNAP software is really really really bad. The hardware is about the same for both. The QNAP does have a nice metal chassis, while the Synology is plastic. I really don't like the QNAP software though.

My Synology DS212j at home has been running flawlessly since I purchased it earlier this year. The DS412+ I installed at work was dead after a week due to motherboard failure, but was replaced promptly by the manufacturer. I couldn't exchange it through Amazon because they were out of stock at the time. I would buy another Synology.

As far as I know, Drobo discontinued their NAS, the Drobo FS. I wonder why? I have heard some good things about them, but also bad things about their warranty/repair process. I think all the other Drobos still made are just multiple-drive enclosures. When hooked up to your PC they show up as a hard drive.

You can turn any computer into a NAS with basic software (or even utilities built into the OS) and share any drives on your computer. That's how you would turn a Drobo into a NAS. The primary advantage of a true standalone NAS is that it consumes less than 50 watts of power when idle, while your computer will consume over 100 watts. The long-term cost savings can be significant. It also keeps the load off your PC's network adapter if other people are using the NAS.

Router
Check Amazon and Newegg reviews to get a rough idea about reliability. If you want something that you can always rely on, buy enterprise-class hardware from Cisco, Dell, and others. Cisco makes great high-end WiFi routers. You should definitely still have a Cat5e cabled network for your PC, NAS, and HTPC at least. It is MUCH faster than WiFi. Use the WiFi for laptops, tablets, and phones.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Cisco 1700 routers?
http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/ ... 68420.html

Hehe... Thanks for the input... haven't had time to put serious effort into it yet, unfortunately.