I replaced the essentials over a year ago (motherboard, processor) and just recently upgraded my video card to the radeon x700 pro.
My 40 GB HD is nearing full capacity due to my increasing file sizes of 3d models and animated renders.. not to mention games like Dawn of War and e xpansion packs, and the ever monstrous file size of World of Warcraft.
I have a secondary 10 GB hard drive that is from an age old Pentium II machine. THAT HD has been backed up to discs and formatted. I now have backup copies of school files and car pics on the 10 GB.
I'm not done upgrading, though. As soon as I can, I am upgrading to 2 or 3 gigs of ram and one rather large hard drive. I think my interest in an Xbox 360 may stall the computer upgrades for an undisclosed amount of time
