Hi Vicki,

The board is full of server vs peer-to-peer discussions, search and you will find way more info than you ever wanted.

We are running peer-to-peer, and have for 6+ years. I do not think the peer-to-peer ever caused problems. We ran on an old Dell single core Optiplex GX620 until June of last year. We then upgraded to a Dell Optiplex GX 690 i7, Win7Pro 64 bit, about $900 from NewEgg. It came with 4 gig RAM, I added 8 more.

Basically it has done fine, no speed issues.

Workstations now a mix of old single core Pentiums and newer i3/i5s, the single core Pentiums are slower but adequate.

My PA and I use wireless laptops, the old single core Latitudes got too slow, HP ProBook 4530s i5s do really well. About $650 if I recall.

I have toyed with the idea of a server, Bert and Sandeep certainly advocate these. But our practice does not have a lot of extra money, I have 2 kids in college and a third in high school, so I have tried to be as cheap as possible!

Hope this helps. Gene

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