Computer/Storage Solution Advice

[BarTopDancer]

I need to pick some brains -

I have a laptop and a desktop running XP. Both are in need of replacement (yes, one person needs 2 computers). I'm having trouble deciding how I want to do this and could use some input.

My current laptop has a small HD - about 150GB. My desktop has an even smaller HD, it's a low end machine purchased to write papers on. Due to some utter stupidity on my part, the machine is fried.

My music (about 110GB) and photos are stored on an external drive (120GB drive). My end goal is to be able to manage all my music through iTunes and photos on one machine.

So, my options (as I see them, please suggest better ones if you have them) are:

1) New laptop with a large HD (500GB seems standard). Manage everything on the machine, use external drive as back up & secondary storage. No new desktop.

2) New laptop & new desktop both running the same OS - use desktop as file server to manage music and photos. Use external drive as back-up only.

3) New laptop & new desktop using some version of Windows home server. Which of course I'd have to confirm that iTunes actually works with it.

If I go with option 1 I'll need to buy a new external drive, which I'll probably have to do anyway for redundancy.

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Second quandary - do I wait for 7 to be released? I'm half tempted to just buy it with Vista then toss XP on it instead. I don't really want to deal with the "7 upgrade" that the machines will be "eligible for". I don't care how they are marketing 7, anything coming from Microsoft worries me until it's been around for awhile.

And no, buying Apple is not an option at this time.