TechChild

Ah, the age old question "what is a 'good' HDD?". There are many nuances to this question, and will be dependent on what you think "good" is. It is going to be dependent primarily on the following: 1 - How much risk can I take with the data that I store on these drives? You can answer this question by considering what your reaction would be if you booted your PC and found out that the drives are gone. If you would be irate and have tremendous anxiety then you will want to go with a solution that is durable and has redundancy. If you would just shrug it off and go on with your life, then you can get away with something cheaper, albeit riskier. 2 - How much storage do I need? This basically boils down to a math problem. How much storage does an average client's project take on your system now, multiplied by the number of clients that you get per month, multiplied by the number of months you want to go without having to upgrade the storage + some extra headroom to allow for increases in the size of the files and hopefully growth in your business. Were I in your position I would err on the side of extreme caution with the risk I took with this data, due to the fact that this computer would be my tool for paying the bills. "You get what you pay for" is a huge factor here. If it were my rig I would purchase 2 4tb Western Digital Black drives running in a Raid 1 configuration. Many would call this overkill, and I am sure there will be those who will disagree with me about it. Western Digital's "Black" line of drives are built to be durable and reliable drives that have great performance. However if you compare prices, a 4tb WD Black is about the same price as a Seagate Barracuda 8tb - 150 USD. There's a lot to be said for $/gb. But, this is ultimately up to you. That being said, there are other ways to bring the price down yet still have security. Here are a couple of hybrid/budget options to what I outlined in the paragraph previously. of the above is running 2 Seagate "Barracuda" drives in Raid 1. Since Barracuda tends to be much cheaper than WD Black, you will get the data security of Raid 1, but with a lower price than "Black". Or you can do the same thing with WD "Blue" or "Green" drives. You would have to do some research as to which option makes the most sense for your needs. A few links to aid you in your research: - An explanation of the differences between the different colors of the WD drives: https://community.wd.com/t/drive-colors/222303 - An explanation between the different types of Seagate drives: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/computers/buying-guide/seagate-which-drive-is-right-for-you - An explanation of the different types of Raid Configurations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels After answering the above questions I would take a look at the following 4 options as a starting point and mess around with the capacity, until you find something that you like: 1 - Western Digital Black 4TB: https://www.amazon.com/Black-4TB-Performance-Hard-Drive/dp/B0792G331G/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Western+Digital+Black+4TB&qid=1604345632&s=electronics&sr=1-2 2 - Western Digital Blue 4TB: https://www.amazon.com/WD-Blue-4TB-Hard-Drive/dp/B013HNYV8I/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Western+Digital+Blue+4TB&qid=1604345606&s=electronics&sr=1-1 3 - Seagate Barracuda Pro 4TB: https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-BarraCuda-3-5-Inch-Computers-ST4000DM006/dp/B01MSW4MNS/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=Seagate+Barracuda+Pro+4TB&qid=1604345554&s=electronics&sr=1-4 4 - Seagate Barracuda Non-Pro 4TB: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D9C7SQH/ref=twister_B08M9YPM2Q?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1 Please note that the Blue and Barracuda Non-Pro drives operate at ~5.5K RPM as opposed to the Pro and Black's ~7.2K RPM. Which means that the Black and Pro drives will load data quicker than the other two. But that may or may not be a problem for you. Hopefully this helps. This isn't meant to be an exhaustive guide to what you should purchase. But consider it a starting tutorial. If something isn't clear just point it out and either I or the rest of the community will be more than happy to help sort it out.

Ah, I see. That is true. I have the expected growth of the # of users that are going to be accessing this system, and I am expecting a reply from our representative at Great Plains. Also great point. Once I get the recommendations from Great Plains I will be searching for a prebuilt server that matches those specs. @brandishwar Thanks for the reality check and advice.

Yes and no. Like I stated previously I haven't built a server tower. But I have plenty of experience building personal computers. I have built 7 personal machines for myself for gaming, + several more for my wife, siblings, and parents. I have complete confidence in being able to build a computer; but the problem comes in that I have nil experience building a server tower. I don't know what the differences are between building a server vs. a personal machine because (like I said before) I haven't built one. I haven't searched for server-grade parts. I know that enterprise-level parts have redundancy and error-checking (specifically for RAM). But again because I haven't purchased those parts before I don't know what to search for and I don't know what good purchase decision is for the price. Which is why I was searching for recommendations for those parts. That's a really good idea. I will send an email to my boss and ask them for projected growth in the number of people accessing the system. That's an excellent idea. That is also a great idea. I will see what I can do with that.

Okay, I will check them out. Thank you all for your timely and quick responses. I appreciate it.

I hadn't thought about the warranty and support. That's a good point. Any suggestions on brands to look at for a reputable pre-built?

Hello LTT community! At my startup company our main server has slowed to a crawl (it's an 8 year old machine, and has been under heavy load for a while). It's a single tower, and I am not sure what the hardware is for it. It isn't our server that is consumer facing, it's just for internal accounting use. My boss is wanting to just buy a server, but I am afraid he'll make a dumb decision and purchase a pre-built server that is going to cause more problems. I need some recommendations for building a server machine, specifically: - What processor would you suggest for a server build that needs to lean on the budget side? We are not serving media from this machine, it is only running Great Plains software and running a database that is used by Great Plains. It doesn't have to be fancy. - What RAM, motherboard, and other components? again leaning on the budget side. - Tower? We have a budget of about $2000. Also, if it is not suggested to build a machine for that low a budget then let me know as well. Like I said before I haven't done a server build, so suggestions, reality checks, clarifying questions are all welcome.

So your max budget is $5k? Do you need monitors with the system? Do you do anything besides gaming? Dude... like I said, the ideal world would be around $5k, but maybe I don't know what is reasonable to accomplish what I want to build? If I need to spend more than that, then so be it. I would like to start working with CAD, and designing 3D objects to be 3d printed and/or machined. So, yeah I will be using it for more than gaming. The answer to the monitor question: not at the time of the build. I have 2 monitors that run at 1080p right now, and they look great for the time being. Later in the year for my Birthday (in the fall) I will splurge and get myself several 4k monitors. I will check those out. You said "minimum 16gb ram". Would it be better to go with 32gb? or 64? And what manufacturers would you recommend?

4K for sure. I am already eyeing a few different options for monitors to buy with the build. However I am not sure on the refresh rate. I was thinking 120hz, but again, I am up for suggestions.

Okay, time for some educating. I would really like some help and recommendations. I have been out of the home-built PC world for a long time. The last one I built was when I was in Middle School (a little over 12 years ago now) and even when I was "super into it" i didn't really have a budget to work with (I modded my parent's old computer that they donated to me). I learned how to match RAM and the limitations of the motherboard, and what CPU would work with it and then I scrounged around for a graphics card. But, I was never really in a position to build anything with the raw strength to power through high end games. I was always stuck with Warcraft 2 and Star Wars X-Wing vs. Tie-Fighter. (which were great games btw, especially X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter). So, I need some education on several things. What should I be looking for with my motherboard and CPU now in 2018. I am looking at building a new PC and making my own tower for it, custom built to my specifications (going to put it into a desk with a glass top so that I can house my PC somewhere other than the floor. And I am going to style it so that it looks beautiful, with water-cooling and RGB, you get the picture. But I don't know what components really to be looking at or considering. I know that Intel just released it's new processor (and it looks like it kicks butt). However, I don't know what motherboards are great currently that can truly harness that CPU. I don't know what to do with Graphics. I use multiple monitors, and would really like a build that could play well with 3, possibly even 4 monitors. (I recently started doing some hobby web design, and found out how beautiful it was to have more display real estate). So any suggestions would be really great. Especially with opinions about the current graphics card arena, motherboard, CPU. This is my goal with this PC: create something that can run any high end game at 60+ fps. Ideally without spending more than $5,000 on parts. But, the goal is performance, not price. I want quality, and you can't have really good quality without shelling out some cash for it. Anyways, Please let me know!