Hi everyone,

This issue has been addressed frequently, most recently in this thread

http://amazingcharts.com/ub/ubbthreads.php/topics/43998/Really_slow_performance#Post43998

I'm starting a new topic, since that one is getting sort of long.

My situation: Our area is rather rural, and there do not seem to be many good network IT people around. Those that seem good are busy, so being able to get someone out to our office quickly (same day) may not be possible. So for me personally to be able to troubleshoot the system has been my goal.

In 6 1/2 years of using AC, we have been very fortunate to have had very few hardware failures. We have had some software problems, usually resolved fairly quickly, once requiring restore from backup.

My plan for catastrophic hardware failure in "Main computer" is to set another PC as main, load from backup, and reset paths for the other PCs. The problem, of course, would be losing that days data, entered since the last backup.

Thanks largely to Bert and Sandeep, I am considering a server. But I would probably set it up with Win 7 Pro.

Advantages:

Redundant power supply

RAID (probably 1)

??Faster performance

Still be able to troubleshoot this myself.

So this should just about eliminate power supply or hard drive failure problems. It would not eliminate mobo failures, memory failures, etc.

Is this worth doing?

Also, looking at Sandeep's RAID card recommendations

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116041

Win 7 is not listed as a supported OS. On the manufacturers support page, there is a comment about

"Supported with the 9.5.3 code set drivers"

which provides a 613 MB link. I hit the link, which downloaded the file. After that finished the download, a "Burn to CD" screen opened. So I have 613 MB of something on a CD!

Any thoughts?

Thanks. Gene


Gene Nallin MD solo family practice with one PA Cumberland, Md