I have a very old computer installation at work. I run a proprietary software package on WinXP on 18 year old hardware. It works 100% for my needs, so I'm not changing it any time soon.
However, 18 year old hardware always has high risk of something failing and parts being irreplaceable.
Currently there are 5 computers in use at work. The 2 main, mission critical ones are the old ones running XP. I also have a raspberry pi 4, a 5 year old Puppy (carolina VG) and a fairly new i3 NUC running Fatdog.
The Fatdog computer runs the same install of XP as one of the old PCs, in fact a clone of the hard drive converted into a VM. It seems to work flawlessly, the only minor hiccup is that I have a hand held barcode scanner whose interface is via a serial port, which the NUC obviously doesn't have!
I am toying with the idea of virtualising all of my old hardware to future proof my computer network. This is where the interesting thing comes in. The i3 NUC is amazing. It does everything I need it to do and never skips a beat. That is runs Chrome, edits photos in GIMP, word processing, printing etc all the while hosting an XP guest. That PC cost me about $600.
I could easily say I'll just get 2 or 3 more and have each serve as a host for VMs etc. Only thing is, that'll cost lots of $$$$
I have found that the Raspberry PI is fantastic for remotely accessing the VM via RDP, which leads to another idea. Build a powerful PC to host multiple VMs and then buy a couple of PIs to use as terminals. The server PC could have multiple hard drives to back up the VMs for security.
So basically what I have is two options to virtualise my network. 3 x i3 machines, close to $2000 worth. Definitely the best option in terms of performance. Or, one semi powerful PC, perhaps for $800 - $1000, and a couple of PIs for under $100 each to connect to VMs on the big machine. Saving maybe up to $1000.
Note, the old hardware running XP is P4 with 512mb ram, so to virtualise 2 or 3 of those on one PC only requires about 2gig of ram, plus some spare CPU, so possibly not even that much horsepower.
What's the thoughts on the above scenario? Any better ideas? I'm interested in other's experience with anything remotely similar and pros and cons of each option.
Infrastructure Idea - Opinions Wanted - VM XP Installation
With used computers that run XP being so incredibly cheap, why not just get 5 or 6 $50 used desktops from the Core Duo end of XP early Windows 7 era, put XP on them and install your software. Since they are old, mirror them 2 or 3 deep so that if one fails, you just unplug it and plug in the next in line.
Dancytron - that makes sense, except it doesn't...
The software the XP machines run is installed in a very specific way. And I have never figured out exactly how that is. I have tried exactly that a number of times, but there is always some minor error (or major error) that counts it as a fail.
I have had total success cloning the hard drives and creating a VM from that, so the software is installed and running without any error.
Besides, we're talking XP here. It was great for it's day, but it is old. I'd like to be able to use the machines to do other stuff, go online etc. I couldn't (wouldn't) do my banking online using an XP machine using an old browser, where as using a modern Pup (or PI) as a host I can go online more safely and still use my XP software for it's purpose.
The software the XP machines run is installed in a very specific way. And I have never figured out exactly how that is. I have tried exactly that a number of times, but there is always some minor error (or major error) that counts it as a fail.
I have had total success cloning the hard drives and creating a VM from that, so the software is installed and running without any error.
Besides, we're talking XP here. It was great for it's day, but it is old. I'd like to be able to use the machines to do other stuff, go online etc. I couldn't (wouldn't) do my banking online using an XP machine using an old browser, where as using a modern Pup (or PI) as a host I can go online more safely and still use my XP software for it's purpose.
