Upgrading

John, if I have a look at one of the refurbishers like micro-dream they’d want £110. On E-Bay it’s considerably less.

The HP you’re looking at will be no slouch at handling heavy loads, I know them well, but really needs an SSD. Indeed I’d go as far to say that your use you’d probably best served by a fast modern dual core with an SSD.

For the sort of money you’re proposing to spend on that HP I could build you a Pentium G4400 / Gigabyte GA-H110M-S2H / 4GB / 120GB SSD in a Zalman T3 case with an Aerocool 500 watt PSU with enough left over to get Windows 10 and Office 2016. Should be able to ship that to you for less than a tenner. If you still need a DVD I have loads in the spares cupboard.

Zoostorm use standard parts, nothing you couldn’t buy. The problem is the PSUs, they are usually around the 250 watt mark but that’s becoming less of an issue (CPU graphics going up, graphics card power usage going down).

The other thing is warranty. On a built PC it’s usually a year, components are often 2, 3 or more. The biggest plus point is with a build you get exactly what you want.

It used to be the cost of Windows that queered the deal but that’s now a thing of the past with the sub £10 keys on E-Bay.

EDIT – it’s amazing what you can do with £300.

CCL Alpha Intel Motherboard Bundle – Pentium Gold G5400 3.7GHz (same as the old i3) / 8GB Crucial DDR4 Memory / Gigabyte H310M S2H / 3 Years Warranty

Adata Ultimate SU800 128GB M.2-2280 SATA III SSD / Aero Cool QS240 Midi Tower Black Case / KL-600M 600W Modular 80+ Bronze PSU

Same spec (but newer generation) as my office / gaming PC (apart from the graphics) and that goes like stink. £20 more gets you a Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5GHz and Hyper X ram.

No, that’s gone. But now we only have to pay a fiver it’s fine by me.

IMO you’ll be much better off with an SSD and no i5 than an i5 with a spinner. The spinner will be the bottleneck and the i5 will be under used.

But here you are, an Elite 8300 with both for £245 on Amazon or a Dell OptiPlex 990 SFF with both for £235

John you may be best investing in a USB dvd rw. I’ve not owned a PC or laptop since 2008 that has a dvd dive in it. Something I rarely need and tbh I don’t think I’ve used my portable one in a few years.

This is the first hit on Amazon, you could probably get the rw down 5o about a tenner if you look about. Also i wouldn’t get hung up on usb3 over 2, they are slow either way, and the writing takes the time anyhow.

USB 3.0 Portable Slim External DVD RW CD RW Drive DVD CD Burner, Writer, Copier, Reader, Rewritable Optical DVD Drive for all Laptop, Desktop, Netbook, Notebook, Apple MAC – Victorian Systems® (DVD RW Drive) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01FOSM9BU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_OGZ9Ab51FXVVQ

I’d opt for the rig with the 240gb ssd and the non rw dvd, and supplement it with the above (or similar). Maybe try and source a pc without a dvd drive altogether if possible.

As l there is little doubt in the future you’ll be getting laptops or small form factor pc’s that don’t have a drive so it will be an investment.

Mine is an older Samsung one. Still works as described all those years ago (I think)

Thr older ones, as usb2 ports could only manage a power throughput of around 500mah, needed a ‘Y’ usb2 cable. Two USB ends plugged in to two USB ports on Thr pc/lappy, the single ended usb plugged into the dvd drive.

Mine iirc only write at x8, not fast, but I’ve never used in that way.im sure they are more up to x32. Mind is about 10 years old. Cost around £15 at the time iirc.

Mine lives in my pc repair kit. Though on my last few jobs, it’s all been download to install including windows . Just make a bootable USB flash drive. Keep that in thr PC repair kit too. It’s about all you need today.

Leave it John, let the buyer decide.

A backup to the same drive is better than none at all but doesn’t protect you against hard drive failure. Then there’s how big to make the backup partition. You’re saying that the backup partition should be small, the implication of that is that they will be using a lot of C: In which case the backup partition is too small…

Second guessing what someone else will do is pretty difficult to get right. You’ve already done more than most and given them the tools to do the job. I’d leave it at that.