[jyl]

My reason for keeping a central desktop is for media storage and backup.

I currently have a 500GB drive on the desktop, and am starting to need a 1TB drive. I upgrade the HDD every year or so. It is getting to be a PITA to keep opening up the MacBook and install new HDDs, has been much easier to open the iMac, and will be easier yet to plug in a FW HDD.

As for backup, the MacBook doesn't get backed up consistently, because it's usually not plugged in to an external HDD backup drive. The iMac is backed up automatically 2X day, and the plan is to start backing it up to two different backup HDDs for more redundancy.

I'm wanting to simplify my life, by only needing to "support" (upgrade, backup, maintain) one central machine. The rest of the machines are, hopefully, going to be cheap internet clients (iPads, other tablets, netbooks, etc) that won't need any "support" beyond discard/replace.