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-Small Business Super-Sized PC Page- |
Fox
Engineering Inc.
PO Box 215 Spencerville, MD 20868 |
| CPU: |
Intel i7 10th generation or later processor with appropriate chipset (or AMD equivalent) |
| Alternate CPU: |
Intel Multi Core Families, i5 10th, 11th, or 12th generation processors (3.0 Ghz or better) w/Intel chipset |
| BIOS: | Not relevant anymore |
| Memory: | 32 GBytes, probably 64GB multi channel memory (it may be possible to just use 16GB of memory...depends upon the high performance applications used. |
| USB Ports: |
Various
motherboards / cases have a variety of USB ports - USB 2, USB 3, USB
3C. Make sure you have sufficient ports for your devices -
Keyboard, Mouse, Speaker, Printer, UPS, Webcam, external drive, and any
other devices needed for this high-performance workstation. |
| Case: | Small Form Factor
Desktop model (alternate - mini tower); micro and VESA mount devices
may not be sufficiently powerful nor have sufficient capacity for high-performance computing. |
| Keyboard: | Standard Windows 104 Keys USB |
| Pointing Device: | optical
mouse with scroll wheel (USB); other pointing devices may be
needed depending upon the applications being used Note: Pay attention to ergonomics and ease of use |
| Floppy Disk: | Not required anymore |
| Main Storage Drive: | Hard Drive: SATA 3, 750
GByte; 7200 rpm, 16MB cache (minimum) hard drive; use RAID
qualified drives for improved reliability Solid State Drive: SATA 3, SSD, 1 TByte capacity. Also M.2 pcie SSD 1TB capacity. For faster overall performance use solid state disk. M.2 SSD is perhaps the fastest and storage is up to 1 or 2 TB. Make sure to take appropriate backups. |
| Alt Drive Configuration #1: |
Use 256 GByte Solid State Disk (SSD) SATA or M.2 as the primary system drive for the
operating system and a 500 GByte or larger second drive for local data
storage, HDD or SSD. |
| Alt Drive Configuration #2: | SATA 1 TByte, 7200 rpm, 32MB or greater
cache; RAID qualified drive Consider dual 750 GB or greater (750 GB or 1 TB) hard drives in a RAID 1 configuration for greater reliability |
| Recommended Storage for Business: | Strongly
consider using Network Attached Storage (NAS) as your primary storage
of business data. Leverage the workstation local storage for
applications and possible temporary storage of work in progress, but
also use NAS for Work-in-progress storage too. NAS device should be user/password protected, minimum dual drive (RAID 1 configuration for reliability) and periodically copied and stored offsite. |
| Partition Info: | Single user: Recommend 128GB primary partition for the OS and applications. Store all DATA on extended partition or off the main storage partition (always backup your data) |
| Partition Info: | Multi user: At least 50% of drive for primary OS partition and applications; Store photos, images & common files on extended partition or off the main storage partition (always backup your data) |
| Optical Disk Drive: | DVD Reader/Writer - (may not be required) |
| Optional Additional Optical DD: | DVD Reader - (may not be required) |
| ** Video Board: | For heavy graphics
usage, consider plug-in video, minimum 4,096 Mbytes; much larger if
needed - leverage gaming video board technology. |
| Video Display LCD: | 27" or
larger (resolution
is fixed on LCDs) contrast
>400,
brightness >250 nits No more than 3 dead pixels (always on) per screen; no more than 5 dead pixels (always dark) Both DVI (digital) and RGB/SVGA (analog) inputs For very high-end work, dual displays configured as a single "desktop" (span two displays); for special applications consider three or even more linked displays. Touch Displays (5-point or 10-point) generally focus on laptops and tablets. However for desktop environments where the screen is about 24" from the user, touch displays would be more difficult to use. A good optical mouse, or pen and tablet to represent the pointing device may be appropriate alternatives. (Note: Touch with big/dual screens may present a challenge to the user, especially if migrating from non-touch environments). |
| Sound: | Unless a special requirement for audio processing, most likely the motherboard sound will suffice. |
| Speakers: | Small, Price
$25 or under sufficient; some speakers built into the video display |
| Internet (WAN) Connectivity: | ADSL
or Cable service probably
available in your area these require
different modems FIOS (Fiber service may be available) uses a WAN/LAN router) (Note: Firewall absolutely required with any Internet use, maybe even more than one to manage subnets and offer additional intrusion protections) |
| LAN Infrastructure: | 1 gb Ethernet
(often on motherboard); may be seeing 2.5 gb ethernet or two-port
bonded links for improved network performance. |
| LAN Switches: | 8 or more
ports, 1GHz (1000 MHz) capability, (unmanaged for simple networking, managed for more complex networking) |
| LAN Cable: | Cat 8
unshielded twisted pair wire for new construction; Cat 6 may also be
sufficient; Cat 5 for existing infrastructures...keeping distances
reasonably short. |
| Backup Strategy: | 1. Network Attached Storage (NAS) - but also need to backup the NAS. 1A. Make sure NAS and Windows uses generational settings in order to go back several versions of files to recover. 1B. Make sure to set up an archival storage to move files no longer needed but still need to be retained for future reference. Backup of the archival storage is important, but doesn't have to be as frequent as current-work storage. 1C. Most of the value in data is current-work. Backup frequently, backup to offline/cloud media - take offline - off premises for safety. 2. Cloud based storage (if using cloud storage, make sure you have your own copy of critical business data at a local offsite location (home, safe deposit box, etc.) in case cloud is not available or files get corrupted. 2A. Use local NAS storage, and backup to the Cloud or a Cloud-based service and/or offline storage. 3. DVD+R or DVD-R is tolerable for some very specific situations but not recommended since most storage runs in the terrabytes and not gigabytes provided by DVRs; (Note:
BACKUP Network Storage to portable hard drive and TAKE
OFF SITE!!)
Note: TEST YOUR BACKUP Strategy periodically
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| Power Sys Backup: | UPS 6
minutes minimum - 650 watts/750+VA Make sure the UPS is connected to the computer for low-battery notification and controlled shut down. Do Not connect printers to the battery backup...only the surge protection. |
| Operating System: | Windows 10 Professional or equivalent Windows 11
(64-bit edition); Account configuration should have a local ADMIN
account and one or more USER-level accounts. All work is done at
USER-level. Your choice of using a local USER account or a
Microsoft-based USER account. |
| Green IT: | RoHS specification (no lead); 80 Plus (power supply efficiency better than 85%; EPEAT (Silver minimum); Energy Star 4.0 or better; Recycle your old computer. |
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VIRUS
Protection, Anti Spyware, and
Firewalls
If you connect to
the Internet, you need a minimum of three
forms of protection against
intruders: A virus detection software package, a Spyware
protection software, and a software or
hardware firewall. Here are but some of the better
products you can choose from: |
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| Virus Protection | |
| Microsoft: |
Microsoft Security Essentials // Windows Defender (possible other various names) |
| McAfee: | VirusScan ($) |
| Norton: |
Norton
AntiVirus ($) |
| TrendMicro: | AntiVirus (?) |
| GRISOFT: | AVG
Antivirus |
| Firewall
Protection (Note: Most/All routers have firewalls built-in; use OS firewall too) |
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| McAfee: | Firewall |
| Norton: | Norton Firewall |
| Your Operating System: |
May have a software firewall too |
| Always keep your Firewall and Virus Protection software up to date! | |
| ** Recommend You Use a NAME BRAND only for this item - see below | |
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NAME
BRANDS
In some cases, use of Name
Brands
(instead of generic brands) is
critical to system
success. This is especially true for the more modern Operating Systems
like Windows and Linux. The drivers
required to operate the
peripheral devices need to be obtained from
a ready source. Some
generic products do not have WEB or
technical support and it may be impossible
to locate the manufacturer. Use of name brands in these cases also
assures drivers are included infuture
editions of these modern
OSs. Use of a
"product compatible"
rating will not
suffice with today's modern Operating Systems! |
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| Name Brand Power System Backup Products | |
| American Power Conversion |
http://www.apc.com/ |
| CyberPower |
https://www.cyberpowersystems.com |
| Operating Systems | |
| Windows | http://www.microsoft.com/ |
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NOTE
Any names/trademarks used are NOT an endorsement of those items...but are provided for reference only and are owned by their owner. Name Brand suggestions are not all inclusive. |
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