On 30/03/2006, at 9:44 PM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
for 8 stations and 1 server, what's the difference in costs:
hardware upgrade - switch and nic cards - ( is this just plug in,
or will there need to be some reconfiguring?)
Plug in, possibly load a driver, configure TCP/IP if not using DHCP.
are $40 gigabit nic cards acceptable ?
Yes
and a $150 switch ?
No, we tried a number of times the Netgear home style Gigabit switch,
with a high load they overheated until dead. Spend more money here if
you can.
software upgrade - Winconnext XP terminial server - is this for +6
stations ?
how much for this and is there a per user cost if it's 8 ?
It turns a Windows XP box into a Terminal Server. If configured so
it's lean (= turn off unused hardware, services, remove software) and
kept clean and dedicated, MD2 runs at extremely high speed. It's a
once-off cost of US$100 per seat, sold in groups of three, with a
small discount the more you buy.
At eight stations you'll probably hit the 10 user network pipe limit
on XP if you are also sharing files and printers with this machine,
which is an argument to devote it entirely to MD and your front desk
package, and have at least one other decent PC a) as a backup server
and b) to drive a scanner, pathology, office software et al.
Greg will love me saying this but it's true. The other hosts can be
low power ultra reliable thin clients, Macs, Linux, or any old PC
running Windows 95, even if it's full of viruses will make little
difference.
The substantial cost savings occur when you would normally otherwise
be replacing PCs, and also the ability to use workstation priced
software if you are into that eg. anti-virus, backup, imaging.
cheers,
Peter.
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