I don't think the Intel chip will make a difference. Macs are made to run beautifully with other Macs. I was amazed at how easily they networked, when I set up a two-Mac network a few years ago.

What about an external hard drive? They're cheaper than Mac Minis, I'm sure. I have all my music files on a DiskGo Firewire, because otherwise I'd have to take off some of my graphics programs from the eMac's hard drive . . . I have rather a lot of music in my iTunes library.