Thin Client generic questions...

dishe · Post by **dishe** » Thu Mar 24, 2011 11:43 am

Hey everyone,
Sorry for the n00bish questions, but I'm hoping you guys can help me make the right decisions here.

I'm currently running my Magic Jack for the last year or so off an old P3 800Mhz laptop with 256MB of ram and a wireless 802.11G card in the expansion slot. Its pretty slow, but it does the job- I was impressed that it even seems to work fine over WiFi, which means I can keep the laptop near my cordless phone base, next to a shelf.

The problem is, the laptop is really starting to show its age, and the power cable seems to fall out with the slightest sneeze. When the power goes out its a real $#%@ to boot back up again, and in general I like the idea of a smaller, dedicated box to do this while likely consuming less electricity as well.

So, here's my dilemma- I've heard about this new MJ box coming soon that won't require a computer anymore. That's a nice option, but I'm under the impression that a Thin Client might be a more useful and versatile tool in the long run.

Is a thin client powerful enough to do things like, say, act as a file server attached to an external HD? How about a bit torrent client?

Because if I can have a dedicated box sharing files and handling things like an occasional download, all while running MJ and freeing up my main computer, then I'd say its a better option than the new MJ Plus (or whatever they're calling it).

What do you guys think?

sabresfan · Post by **sabresfan** » Thu Mar 24, 2011 3:54 pm

TC's can be used for other things it just depends on which one you get. Some of the lower end models can barely run MJ and others can do much more along with running MJ. The bigger questions I would ask myself is are you willing to invest around a $100 for a TC that will do what you want. I'm also running my MJ on an old laptop and I'm just gonna run my MJ on it until it won't run anymore. The power difference is not enough each month for me to care about and this laptop is so old it's basically useless for almost anything else other than running MJ. Just keep an eye out on ebay and see if you see a TC that might do what you want.

dishe · Post by **dishe** » Thu Mar 24, 2011 4:38 pm

sabresfan wrote:TC's can be used for other things it just depends on which one you get. Some of the lower end models can barely run MJ and others can do much more along with running MJ. The bigger questions I would ask myself is are you willing to invest around a $100 for a TC that will do what you want. I'm also running my MJ on an old laptop and I'm just gonna run my MJ on it until it won't run anymore. The power difference is not enough each month for me to care about and this laptop is so old it's basically useless for almost anything else other than running MJ. Just keep an eye out on ebay and see if you see a TC that might do what you want.

For $100, I probably wouldn't do it. But they seem to have dropped almost half in price over the last year or so.

Is it unrealistic for a mid-range TC to be able to handle MJ, file sharing, and possibly a bit torrent client occasionally, all over WiFi while attached to an external storage medium?

sabresfan · Post by **sabresfan** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 6:53 am

We use TC's at work for everything so if you get the decent TC I don't see why it wouldn't work.

captcurt · Post by **captcurt** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 12:52 pm

They can definitely do those things.

For file server, just plug in a USB terabyte external and away you go.

See this link

http://www.thinclientforum.com/

Cheers

Curt

dishe · Post by **dishe** » Sun Mar 27, 2011 1:21 am

Interesting... I actually have an 80GB SSD I could wire up for a very low power solution or something.

Got any suggestions for a decent spec'ed box that would handle what I'm looking for, as well as work over wifi (I've seen soe have wireless built in while others do not)?