Honestly I think its totally insane that anyone would run amazing charts on desktop class hardware. First, even if it can run out it why put your whole business in the hands of desktop class hardware. Desktop Class hardware fails, daily. Server grade hardware is built for reliability and fault tolerance. When configured properly, hard drives are in RAID (RAID1 or RAID5) or combinations of the two. Even if you back up AC every night your at risk. If you don't have AC, you can still treat patients but can you give them the same level of service. Do you have access to their charts, allergies, previous RX'es, etc... Without AC for 1 day would be a disaster. Every place I have ever installed and configured AC, the main computer has been some form of a HP Proliant Server (ML150, ML350, DL360, DL160, etc) Hard Drives were configured in RAID1, separate hard drive for backups, and AC online backup service.
Okay, some might say I'm paranoid, but when it comes to being with AC for one day everyone of my customers would call it a disaster.
Stylnchris,
I understand where you are coming from and appreciate Bert's Comments too. I think you will find Amazing Charts users a little bit more frugal bunch than others. Plus many of us are solo practices. I do not have the brains of Bert and do not want to learn all the nuances of client-server networks. It's not that I don't think they are better. I run a small shop. I can't employ a IT expert. I have used Amazing Charts without fail for 10 years using peer to peer networking on desktop grade hardware. I have NEVER had a failure which was not recoverable. I backup stuff like 5 different places and keep about 2 months worth of backups. I also gave some propofol to Wendell at the last user meeting and saved a copy of my *.enc file on the USB drive around his neck (and I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night)
The only failure I had was amazing charts 6.0.9 half baked beta release where I had to revert to 5.1.7. Sure I have had hardware failures over the years. But never one that sent me over the edge. I can do without amazing charts for the day, and I have. I have notes printed out in a paper chart.
Again, I am not trying to argue that my situation is better. If you have a server-client, with RAID 5, more power to you . You have a better system. But many users don't need it in order to experience the benefits of amazing charts.
