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I have a customer where I need to add 4 new users. They like Dell and currenly have all optiplex 380 desktops.

I need to find a similar buisness pc but I would like to start using SSD’s and 6-8 GB of memory.

I am having isue finding this with dell for a buisness PC and maintaining a sub $1000.00 per unit price tag.

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Give me a second, looking at configs. But you might need to drop either the SSD requirement or raise the budget. (or go third party for the RAM and SSD)

I’ll go into details once i have configs.

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Showing the Optiplex 7010 with the following config runs for $889 direct

i5-3570

WIn 7 Pro 64

6gb of 1600mhz RAM

128gb SSD

3year basic warranty

Upgrade to 8gb? $922

8gb and a 3 year NBD warranty? $973

So what’s the problem again?

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As far as WHY you shouldn’t get the SSD, well, it really depends on the business.

Odds are you don’t want to trade reliability and longevity for speed.

If this business is good about replacing computers every 3 years (and if they are still rocking 380’s they aren’t) then an SSD isn’t a big deal.

However, SSDs work best when they have at least 30% free space, and sizes are small. a 128gb SSD should be enough for anyone, but odds are it’ll get out grown.

My suggestion is to order them with 500gb hard drives and either invest the savings elsewhere (perhaps a 4 or 5 year warranty) or purchase an SSD third party and use it as a boot drive and the 500gb as a "data"drive.

As far as RAM, 8gb is overkill most of the time (unless, again, these computer will get run for 5+ years or we’re talking CAD). So i’d need to know the usage before saying if you should bother going over 4gb of RAM.

Given the pricing though 6gb seems to be the sweet spot, so that is what i’d probably go with either way.

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128GB SSD is too small. After Windows takes up it’s fair share, and the page file takes up another 6 GB (assuming you have that much RAM) you won’t be left with much.

We buy Dells… currently the OptiPlex 9010’s. But most of the time we purchase the memory direct from Crucial. SSD’s too. Dell charges WAAAY too much for memory. It’s literally like 1/3 the cost at Crucial. We usually buy 16 GB kits for our OptiPlex’s, but we have a lot of Software Engineers with multiple running VM’s on their stations. A general purpose workstation should be fine with 6-8 GB.

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Now that I think about it you probably need monitors:

Here’s your best bet for $100: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009436

Under $200? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009245

The middleground: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009316

Might seem like I’m favoring acer, but they’re high quality for the price.

As far as shoehorning that in budget with the PC’s at the highest config?

Scope out PCM or your Dell rep. They should be able to get you that computer with a 20in monitor for about $1,050 if you ask nice enough.

Drop down to 6gb of RAM and drop the SSD and you’ll have no worries.

and if you MUST buy an SSD third party:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148442

Enterprisish-grade and reasonably reliable.

Aternative: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147192

Faster, but less “reliable”

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lol I disagree, seeing as they are running off of 380’s, I don’t think storage is their primary concern, and if it was that’s what a nice NAS is set up for

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  1. You don’t put a page file on an SSD.

  2. After windows and the OS you’re left with about 75gb of usable space before you need to worry about hitting the performance wall. If your users need this much space then there’s probably something wrong and they aren’t utilizing the network correctly.

Edit: I know it looks like i’m at odds here when above i say that they will out-grow a 128gb SSD, but here i’m saying it’s big enough:

If this machine is destined for a nice cushy 3-4 year life then 128gb is plenty fine, but if you want this bad boy to run for 6-7 years you’re probably going to run into issue.

Edit II:

  1. Even if you DID put a page file on your SSD you don’t’make your page file the same size as your RAM, that’s outdated practice, you go based on charge under extreme load. Since this is highly dependent on the actual load of the computer it’s best to just let windows handle it.

Generally speaking though 75% of your RAM is usually still too mjuch.

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Isn’t a custom* built (x4) an option ?

  • tailoring it the way you want from scratch not pre-made.
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Where are you putting your page file then?

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TCO is going to be too high. Support is going to be a nightmare.

Sure, he’ll save about 10%, but the time spent building them and supporting them is going to eat that up.

Best to get an OK workstation with a good warranty.

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For sure - never fall into the trap of building your own! [For work that is]

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custom is always cool sounding, but business support for the extra dinero, is where you see the real value. Sometimes you can get a part same day, opposed to waiting a day or two for newegg or tiger direct to process.

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I have some of my own reasons to disagree with that but its mostly due to the enviroment of work and situation,in case of hardware failure.

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A hard disk, where it belongs.

If OP wants to run SSD only that’s up to him, but that’s not what you should be doing. PF causes far too many write operations and makes the already short life of an SSD to become even shorter.

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It’s definitely something that should be looked into, if you’re not too small to not have full time IT staff, and not too big to not have the time to dedicate to it then go for it.

But more often than not you’re trading money up-front to money in wasted time.

My way of thinking isn’t a catch all, DIY works for some, but IMO it doesn’t work for most.

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Since we are talking about it though, aren’t there(in the US) companies/shops that can built custom computers including warranties on-site,other than the usual well know big vendors?

Just courious about it.

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You might want to look into Hybrid drives. Conventional Hard Drive with building 30GB SSD. If the SSD Portion fails the HDD portion will continue to function normally.

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Paragraph this is a discussion i would love to make in another post or pm. It’s a matter that i think of a lot in the past few years.

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I’ve seen a few, generally they’re MSPs with very large install bases and already have an existing contract with the company.

The high install base means they have plenty of parts (or even spares) on hand, and the fact they have an existing contract means they were going to support it anyway.

However, more often than not it’s not really a good business model, there just aren’t margins on hardware, especially in small installs.

When it comes to high-end workstations and servers though, SuperMicro comes into play. There are MANY companies who re-badge super-micro servers as a VAR. The margins are usually bigger, and these servers tend to either be leased or included in software deployments (Sage’s Intergy EMR is a good example of this).

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