Will this machine cut it?

Hi,
I’m looking into a new business start-up (web based)

Looking to create and run a website including full e-commerce, max 400 product database, stock tracking, accounts, etc

What I got is: -

Intel Celeron D Processor 346 (3.06GHz, 533FSB, 256kB cache)
Windows XP Home Edition
512mb memory
80GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
16x DVD+/-RW Drive
17" Monitor

Will these specs cope?

If not, what are the minimum specs that I need?

Maybe. If you're running multiple web apps and expecting lots of website visitors, then you might want to consider Dual Core and not using XP home.

But, if you're not expecting much traffic, it should be fine. You could probably even put a 1Ghz machine with 512MB ram running Unix/Linux that'd do the job.

Windows isn't really the best for a server role anyway. It depends on how much use this will receive. Good luck.

well, that hardware is a little dated and needing more storage (a lot more) and every business will soon be adopting Vista so i think it would be wise to build/buy a Vista capable machine and some modern business software to be competitive, a strong data backup system is mandatory and as someone already mentioned building a RAID1 array to be the minimum protection for your database.
go here and learn a bit more...
http://www.microsoft.com/ireland/s [...] fault.mspx
after that go here and learn some more...
http://www.smallbusinessbible.org/navigation/os.html

and it's a relatively good card for only $86.99

Yea that MB doesnt have onboard but he could use a different MB with onboard.
And yes it is only 87$ or somthing but that 87$ could double his HDD space perhaps

you are right, xp will do its job just fine

Get rid of XP, get a free Linux distro, it will work better for server purposes than XP. Use the free money to buy more ram or a faster/larger hard drive.

google=linux distro on every one of its 450,000 servers