homeap5

IMO - no. Stay with very good and powerful processor you already have.

Or... He can ask IT guy to remove all protections and convert that surface to normal, personal version. This way he'll keep all his data. For good IT guy who configure this pc it will be very easy task.

Don't worry about that questions about detailed configuration - I don't even know for what, because you provided must important config in your first post and I don't think that case model or motherboard model can change anything. People, stop asking for config if it's not necessary! It's like math - if you have only few variables known, but enough to solve problem, then figure out rest. It's obvious that op has motherboard that can handle his cpu etc. GPU is the most obvious recommendation - it makes bigger difference that is very noticeable for everyone. Upgrading ram to faster one without gpu can't give any real speed improvement. And gpu upgrade is safe - no waste of any parts and if op will want to upgrade other parts in the future - gpu will still be needed.

Start with gpu then.

Free version is enough. Just follow my advices and don't clone system - image it and then restore.

Fastest way is to create image of fully configured system with programs using Macrium Reflect and then restore that image on different drives. If your image will be on ssd and drive to restore will be ssd too, whole process takes about 2 minutes. If laptops have key stored in bios, install Windows on any other computer without key, so after first boot on laptop Windows adjust hardware and activates using bios key.

Macrium Reflect. But clone offline system (use bootable rescue usb or different pc). You may clone working os too, but that rely on vss which I don't trust, because the only one case my clone was bad was when I decided to try cloning working os. Other people do that without issues though, so maybe that was my bad luck.

Any Windows image can do that. https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/1236956-some-thoughts-on-reinstalling-re-using-windows/

It is. All you need is try. You can easily check fps in game so you can confirm is it working or not.

Share any link to your music please. Thank you.

More powerful pc is always better for any task than slower one, even for net browsing. Some people using 4 core old processors for music production and it works great. So if you ask about "is my config enough" then yes - more than enough. Or not enough if you expect that Aftereffect or Premiere will be very fast - they never will. :)

Sorry, but this will be media server, right? How important is highest security for that? Install some good firewall like Comodo and you'll be fine. And you may even stay with Vista if media server supports it.

You can also prepare usb drivers silent installation using command line (bat). I don't remember parameters, but it's possible. All you need is to put proper bat in startup folder and exe with drivers somewhere. You can do that using bootable ubuntu that can access your drive.

Not really, I just know that it doesn't matter how big is your drive no matter how old (or new) your motherboard is. It will work (GPT). And it doesn't matter if rest of your drives are GPT or MBR. I just didn't know if you have any other drive because you asked for drive for Windows in title and you said nothing about having any other drives. The only problem is when you want to use this drive on some old motherboard that have no uefi bios as boot drive. It's not your case so buy bigger drive, initialize it in Windows as gpt, made partition and have fun.

You must choose - quality or features for the same price. Asus made best quality motherboards imo, but for the same price you'll get less features than Asrock or MSI can give you. But if both motherboards are the same good (and have similar number of features) - go for Asus. At least you'll have best bios and probably faster boot/post.

If money is not a problem, buy even cheap ssd 256GB for system and 4TB hdd for data.

First check two things - try to save one big file to drive, then restart and check if is still there. If not - connect this drive to another computer and check the same (use drive as data drive). If that file will be missing in both cases after restart - it's drive problem. Maybe firmware update helps then. If you think that it's software issue - clone your drive to any other drive and check if the same system on different drive still has that issue.

Try to disable oc and underclock your gpu. Also - if you updated gpu drivers - try to back to previous version.

It may be ssd failure. I saw this once and I didn't believe it.

Is this your only computer?

It's not a downgrade, it's just changing the way you treat your phone. If you buy something cheaper, you can spend rest of money for pc improvement. Or other things. Good Yamaha amplifier costs less than your budget. You can buy lot of ram for that. Or even build small pc as media center. I can imagine lot of things better to spend money than phone. But it's just me and everyone has different needs.

Just boot your ssd on new pc. I don't say anything about new ssd! That's all you need - boot your existing system on new hardware. Read my link if you want more informations.

THIS! It's really not so difficult to try - just plug your drive and boot. And you'll be fine. It's basically the easiest and most safe test you can do. Windows recognize your new hardware without any problem and adjust system to new hardware. It's really time to end this reinstalling "just in case" thing. link

I control remotely few computers and security cameras using my phone. I browsing internet, using email client, I connecting wireless my phone into pc to made it communication center (automatic messages, mms handling). I also using it as e-banking device, video communication and media remote controller. Plus camera of course. And I have really crappy old phone (Lenovo with Android 7). What do you do on your phones more that needs so powerful hardware? I'm just curious.

Unpack iso file that you downloaded using Media Creation Tool.