20x Computer Build Help

i know its been said and you dont wanna hear it again.

but i bet the price you would get on 20 dell optiplex machines with a reseller acount or just through a small business plan will be much cheaper then the systems u build with the monitor.

plus installing windows and drivers on 20 machines wouldn't be fun at all, figure you have a kvm, you can do 4 at a time, they still take 30minutes installing programs after windows load, 10 hours installing stuff after windows you sure u wanna do that?

warranty issues, if a harddrive or motherboard fails in your built machine, you have to order new one from newegg, 3 days. dell u can get hte part next day if its a buisness machine.

we use to do the whole home built ones, but its just not practical with buisness. we save much more money and time going with dell and a reseller account.

you mentioned server, but i saw no mention in the build. file server or what? if its a file server, ditch taht shitty external harddrive for backup, get a rev drive, tapes are cheaper then dat and reliable.

you may want to really reconsider, and talk to the doctors office. any time a prblem happens their gonna blame you andhte home built computers, if you have a oem machine, u can just blame hte oem on it.
 
external hdd is cheaper than tape drive and easier for people with less technological knowledge (aka dental staff) to manage.
 
tape drives only go up to about 30g according to Patterson Dental. I will easily have way more
then that. Also we use Tape Drives now and are not big fans ;/
 
AMD RULES said:
external hdd is cheaper than tape drive and easier for people with less technological knowledge (aka dental staff) to manage.
Click to expand...

16 year olds nationwide change tapes in POS systems everynight...it isn't difficult to do the backups. Not to mention it is a more reliable backup media especially for moving a lot, and longterm storage.
 
FlowGaming said:
tape drives only go up to about 30g according to Patterson Dental. I will easily have way more
then that. Also we use Tape Drives now and are not big fans ;/
Click to expand...

Again this Patterson dental isn't sounding like they are giving you terribly good advice or being a terribly good vendor tape backups currently are available in much larger capacities than 30gb.
 
OP, my father and bro are both dentists, (I almost was, but I'm too dumb for Organic Chemistry) and indeed back in the day about 10 years ago I did systems for both of their offices because Patterson was equally stupid expensive then. My sincere advice to you is to sit down with your Dad AND his office manager immediatly after the install and have a written, signed plan for who to call if x, y, or z happens. That way, when something happens, everyone knows what to do without any drama, panic, or fire drills. Have a plan A and plan B for every important senario, too. Putting it in writing will make everyone accountable for what they are responsibe for and reduce the chances of hurt feelings or damaged relationships. Support backup plans are as important as hardware backup plans. It's very expensive for a chair to go down during the tightly scheduled day. Also, Patterson will do most anything you can't, and then they will take responsibility. Don't assume they are all or nothing. Let them do part to keep them involved.

These days, Patterson will buy computers from VM for my family and some of their dentist friends without having to go through all of this. They put a fair markup on my systems and insert an added layer of support so my Dad will not call me out of a meeting with my tech support department to ask me a question about how to copy a word file to CD again. He can't get it to just call my support department instead of me personally, but my bro is getting better at it. Dad will call at 10 at night to ask me a PC question...usually software, but...and he's recently retired!

Anyway, I wish you luck, and really think the written protocol is a big deal for your relationship with your Dad, as well as keeping his business running smooth.

Hey, I actually made it all the way through this post without mentioning folding.
 
so what is the server going to be?

and why do you need such a large backup device? what information is needed to be backed up, i figured it would be all spreadsheets with patient history.

just wierd, most big buisness we do work for all use the 30 gb tapes and no one has filled them up.
 
FlowGaming said:
tape drives only go up to about 30g according to Patterson Dental. I will easily have way more
then that. Also we use Tape Drives now and are not big fans ;/
Click to expand...

My LTO-3 tapes have a native capacity of 400 GB's each and 800 GB's compressed. The Library will back up over 17.6 TB's uncompressed and over 35 TB's compressed.

If they really told you "tape drives only go up to about 30g..." I would be very concerned about ANY backup strategies they offer and research the subject yourself.
 
FlowGaming said:
Now on to what I need info on

-Hard Drive Image Copying Software
what programs and etc you you guys suggest that will allow me to build and fully setup
1x computer and then copy that hd to all the other computers?

-Security
Im not going to state how I am thinking about setting up the security. Patterson only
suggested Norton but I do not feel that is adequate. How would you guys filter the
everything coming into the office so that I have a good line of safety?
Click to expand...

I personaly prefer acronis true image. Symantec ghost corporate will work fine too. Just make an image of an install(prefer using a vlk for windows if possible) and seal it. Once you have the image you boot the machine off a cd and pull the image down off the server, external hd, whatever.

Secutiry. Don't use norton. Symantec AV(corporate norton) is fine and works well. I would use it or NOD32 corporate. Both are managed which means you can look at a console view and see all of the machines at once. Really nice to have the updates pushed down from the server to the workstations for it.

You want something pased that look at pc tools spyware doctor enterprise. That will take care of malware. Once again it is managed by a console. Very nice setup too.

For a router go with a sonic wall or a small business cisco router. 800 series should be fine, don't really think you would need to go to like the 1800 line for what you will be doing.
 
This comment/question is for everybody and not directly aimed at FlowGaming:

I was poking around Dell's small business site and they offer hardware firewalls, including Sonicwall. Comparing prices with Newegg it looks like this:

Newegg: Sonicwall TZ 150 = $212 + $4 shipping + $59.99 for 2yr maintenance contract
Dell: Sonicwall TZ 150 = $249 + $? shipping + $49.99 for 2yr maintenance contract.

So yes, the Dell is more expensive, but not by a lot. The big question I have is how do the maintenance contracts differ? I've had good experiences with the Dell service department, but know nothing about what's involved with a newegg maintenance contract.

Which vendor (Dell, Newegg, or Other) would have better service should a problem arise? Is there a vendor with a known bad track record that should be avoided?

Or is the hardware firewall something that you just buy a second of and replace when it breaks in leiu of a maintenance contract? Not that I'm predicting a failure, but at work I need to identify every risk and state possible mitigation strategies. So I tend to look at everything that way.

Edit: I just researched the TZ 150 and the MTBF is 9 years. And for the record the TZ150 is just an example I used for discussion, I have no reference as to whether it's the best choice for this application or not.
 
TheRapture said:
Because he is in for a big ass mess.....he obviously does not have the skill or experience/knowledge to handle a job of this magnitude....
Click to expand...


Dude.... please stop posting these stupid comments. Every other post I read you make a
post like this. Please stop! once is enough!!


Ockie said:
FlowGaming, why are you not listening to the advice we gave you over at www.NetworkIsDown.com regarding your server?
Click to expand...
Ill be right there
 
If I were you I would think about running nightly backups, combined with some sort of "quickie" file restore (i.e. Shadow Copy) for those jobs you need to do ASAP because some dumb ass accidentally erased a file. We use a combination of TSM with nightly Veritas tape backups and Shadow Copy here but that would be hugely overkill for such a small setup like yours. RAID-5 will only protect you against hardware failure, not some retard erasing a tab out of an Excel document and overwriting the file.

As far as these 750GB external drives go, where are you storing them? Would it be easy for someone to grab one off a shelf and walk out with it? Is it kept off site or at least in a fireproof cabinet in case the building goes up in flames? Two separate drives kept in the same place aren't much help in the event of a disaster.

I use a combination of Acronis and Ghost. Ghost is nice because you can set up a Ghost server for all the clients PCs to pull an image from- makes automation easy. Acronis comes in handy for systems you want to image without bringing the server down and the scheduled back ups work nicely.

Symantec Corporate AV is fine for this application and I would think a Cisco PIX firewall would work nicely for your setup. You may also want to look into some kind of remote access functionality, seeing as this kind of thing (PC/Network support) is not your daily 9-5 job and you may need quick access in the event of an emergency.

As someone else stated, you may want to look further into dentist office requirements, because there probably are a whole slew of things you will want to be in compliance with, and your dad could end up in big trouble if these things aren't met.
 
FlowGaming said:
That is what I am thinking about going with but.. was wondering if there was anything
better out there.
Click to expand...
If ghost works on the hardware you chose, why not go with it? It fits on a USB stick -according to Djnes- and therefore seems a rather smart choice, if your mobo's can boot off USB.

FlowGaming said:
tape drives only go up to about 30g according to Patterson Dental. I will easily have way more
then that. Also we use Tape Drives now and are not big fans ;/
Click to expand...
On the one hand you are telling us that PatDen is a retarded company, since they want to sell you an 'outdated' machine for way too much money, yet you seem to take all their advice as if it were godsend. You can just hit e-bay and find lots of used tape drives that can store more than 100GiB uncompressed.
 
We already do nightly back ups at the end of every work day. My plan is to back up all the data each day to 1x 750g hd. Each week the 750g hd will be swapped for the other.

That way one hard drive can stay off property in a fire proof cabinet and there will always be a good back up to fall back to.

At the office the server will be in a cabinet and locked up. So no one can take the external hd.


I have started building the computers and everything is going great. I have had only one problem with one computer. I was unable to get it to post. So tonight I am taking it out of the case and reseat everything on a cardboard box.

Other then that there are no problems with anything arriving DOA that I have ordered :D
But of the MB or etc on that pc is bad. I have spare parts to build and fix it with.
 
i still think you should reconsider a better backup device.

a tape backup is a must for any buisness, i wouldn't recommend any company with 20 computers an external harddrive that someone must carry around.

look into a good tape backup setup and veritas. and are you really backing up 750gigs each nite, that is a crazy amount of data for a dental office.

what about server? have you gave that any consideration on what ur doing?
 
All right.....enough,

To the posters - You will lay off the personal jabs, the insults, and the flames or I will arrange administrative attention for you. Simple and completely in your control. If you don't have anything constructive to post....please don't.

To the OP - When you ask a group for advice, you may not hear exactly what you want. Keep an open mind and consider solutions you may not have thought of originally.

Keep it civil and constructive or folks get banned and threads get locked. Very simple.
 
BlindedByScience said:
All right.....enough,

To the posters - You will lay off the personal jabs, the insults, and the flames or I will arrange administrative attention for you. Simple and completely in your control. If you don't have anything constructive to post....please don't.

To the OP - When you ask a group for advice, you may not hear exactly what you want. Keep an open mind and consider solutions you may not have thought of originally.

Keep it civil and constructive or folks get banned and threads get locked. Very simple.
Click to expand...

thanks. Its about time this shit was taken care of.
Flowgaming, how are the workstatinos coming along?
 
Since my other post got deleted, I'll post the constructive info from it in this post. Sorry, it was not meant to be offensive :(


Have you considered an off-site backup as well? It is vital to be redundant with your customer's data, but keep it secure at the same time. The external drive idea allows you to backup, but it is slightly insecure and requires work. Ideally, you could have the server back itself up to another server on-site and then do a nightly backup to another location in case of disaster. Always think of the worst-case scenario when designing backup systems :D

You also may want to use something other than cardboard (rubber surface = good) to troubleshoot. From my experience, cardboard is usually dusty and can carry static, which could make possibly DOA parts deader.
 
synaps3 said:
Since my other post got deleted, I'll post the constructive info from it in this post. Sorry, it was not meant to be offensive :(


Have you considered an off-site backup as well? It is vital to be redundant with your customer's data, but keep it secure at the same time. The external drive idea allows you to backup, but it is slightly insecure and requires work. Ideally, you could have the server back itself up to another server on-site and then do a nightly backup to another location in case of disaster. Always think of the worst-case scenario when designing backup systems :D

You also may want to use something other than cardboard (rubber surface = good) to troubleshoot. From my experience, cardboard is usually dusty and can carry static, which could make possibly DOA parts deader.
Click to expand...

Offsite backup with 750gigs? The only offsite backup i know of is the ones that u juts upload the information to a server. You would need a hefty connection for that.
 
marley1 said:
Offsite backup with 750gigs? The only offsite backup i know of is the ones that u juts upload the information to a server. You would need a hefty connection for that.
Click to expand...

Offsite backups can be as simple as taking a backup tape (or harddrive) and storing it at another location.
 
MovieMan80 said:
Offsite backups can be as simple as taking a backup tape (or harddrive) and storing it at another location.
Click to expand...

i always used 'offsite backup' as those services where u actually upload ur information to a server.

but yes he should use some offsite tape backups, no lugging around external harddrives, that just doesn't seem smart, someone could drop it out of the car and then your dental informaiton is available to anyone who has a usb port.
 
I seriously doubt the customer info is 750Gb. I would guess 20Gb at most. And even if it was, it doesn't matter if the remote tape backup took all night, as long as it is backed up. I'm sure there are systems or programs that can tell what has been updated and only send the updated or new info nightly; it does not need to overwrite itself every night.

My definition of remote backup does not involve the physical movement of anything but electrons. Both servers and all drives should never move, and always be locked and guarded for customer privacy.

I realize the difficulty of that, and the relative ease of the 2x 750Gb drive method, but the proposed method is nowhere near as secure and redundant as it should be for medical records.
 
Thank You BlindedByScience,

I really have taken the info you guys have given me and really reworked/thought some things.
I am going to do a Raid10 with 4x 500g HD's. I just placed the order tonight for the extra HD
and HotSwap Bay.

All of the workstation's are coming along very very very nicely! and things are prefect. I have
6x more computers to build and got the first ones done in about 2x hours.

For Ghosting all the computers, my friends and I have been working really hard at researing
what is the best way to go about this. But I think that tonight they hit pay day and everything
is good in that sense.

I will have a nice project build with pictures very soon.




Questions:
-what would be a good off site back up host to go with?
My only concern would be the upload speed? I really don't think that this would work for
me. I understand what you guys mean about the trouble of my using a 750g hd and all
but I feel that that would be fine.
 
why do you keep asking questions if you dont take any of our advice seriously.

Raid10 seems to be overkill, Raid5 would be a much better thing. But using SATA will save a bit of money over usinsg SCSI

Have you finally decided on the hardware your using? I hope ur using server grade equipment and not just buidlging another pc for it.

What SATA Raid card?

And NO USB HARDDRIVE TO BACKUP. This is a 20 computer buisness not a Family computer. USE BUISNESS GRADE EQUIPMENT.
 
FlowGaming said:
For Ghosting all the computers, my friends and I have been working really hard at researing
what is the best way to go about this. But I think that tonight they hit pay day and everything
is good in that sense.

I will have a nice project build with pictures very soon.




Questions:
-what would be a good off site back up host to go with?
My only concern would be the upload speed? I really don't think that this would work for
me. I understand what you guys mean about the trouble of my using a 750g hd and all
but I feel that that would be fine.
Click to expand...


With the ghosting it is pretty easy. You just need to seal an image then ghost it. Still would recomend doing it with an open volume license.

I don't know if I would go with an online backup site. Hell if anything have a machine with a raid in it at home with the backup software on it. You can then copy the backups to it and verify them. That way you have an offsite copy. Something simple like this would work.

I'd also get another hd or 2 for backup so you can keep an offsite backup somewhere.
 
I came in this late. I would have strongly pushed for the DELL solution. Business computers are a different ball game. But this is done. So it looks like you are after a backup solution and configuring a server. Again, I would recommend a proper server from Dell, HP, etc. As for backup, don't use a hard drive. Use tapes which can be cycled and moved on/off site regularly with a good backup plan and procedure in place.

Businesses realise that home/soho equipment is cheaper. They also realise that they can find some local geek to work a home grown solution at a fraction of the cost of a real business solution. But real business solutions aren't built over night, they are tested and carefully planned. They also usually involve some dedicated staff to solve problems which don't even exist yet. For instance, they have people looking into what the daylight savings change this year is going to do to all the software/hardware on the system. Truthfully, if I was the company producing the specialized x-ray software I would not have allowed this or made you sign a waiver which says I don't have to support my specialized software on unsupported hardware configurations.

For all intents, this is meant to be constructive to help you understand what kind of commitment you have gotten into.
 
Again, I hope the OP gets it right, but he has continuosly ignored some of the [H]'s best member's advice....
 
marley1 said:
Offsite backup with 750gigs? The only offsite backup i know of is the ones that u juts upload the information to a server. You would need a hefty connection for that.
Click to expand...

I sincerely doubt that all 750GiB of information change each and every night .RSync is a rather bandwidth efficient, but CPU intensive way to transfer `slowly changing' data.

FlowGaming said:
My only concern would be the upload speed?
Click to expand...
See above. An initial sync will need to be done and probably take some time. Additional changes in the future will take less bandwidth.
 
sorry for being away for a while.
I went skiing :D


All the computers have not been built and I have had very few DOA parts.

Actually I have only had 1x of these parts below arrive bad on me. And since there
is 2x spare computers this caused no problem what so ever. And some of you guys
flamed me to the end of the earth over this
motherboard
cpu
ram
power supply (makes bad noise)


other then this everything has worked perfectly


Will post pictures very soon. I just need to resize them and upload them.
 
The best suggestion of the thread that hasnt been repeated a hundred times was having a written agreement with your dad and his office as to what tech support you are responsible for (you are going to want to work something out with your friends, as it doesnt matter how experienced they are with this sort of thing if they aren't going to prepared to work when needed. A problem not uncommon for teenagers) . You should also look into the legal aspects, as medical records have lots of interesting applicable laws.


Good luck and congrats on getting the first part finished, if nothing else this should be a learning experience. I wish you the best.
 
FlowGaming said:
sorry for being away for a while.
I went skiing :D


All the computers have not been built and I have had very few DOA parts.

Actually I have only had 1x of these parts below arrive bad on me. And since there
is 2x spare computers this caused no problem what so ever. And some of you guys
flamed me to the end of the earth over this
motherboard
cpu
ram
power supply (makes bad noise)


other then this everything has worked perfectly


Will post pictures very soon. I just need to resize them and upload them.
Click to expand...
But they go bad hurry...
 
Table said:
The best suggestion of the thread that hasnt been repeated a hundred times was having a written agreement with your dad and his office as to what tech support you are responsible for (you are going to want to work something out with your friends, as it doesnt matter how experienced they are with this sort of thing if they aren't going to prepared to work when needed. A problem not uncommon for teenagers) . You should also look into the legal aspects, as medical records have lots of interesting applicable laws.


Good luck and congrats on getting the first part finished, if nothing else this should be a learning experience. I wish you the best.
Click to expand...


Thank you very much. This was a fun experience and things and I do have some funny memorys
to last me a while.

Though.. the paperwork and talk is also almost all the way done.

We (myself and the 2x teck's) have sat down and talked to everyone in the office and told
them all the info. We are now typing out a doc that will explain everything. "What happens
if a wireless keyboard does not work?" etc "how do you make a back up and check it"
Everything from the simple to the grand will be explained in this doc.

I have looked into what happens if I lose med data. Raid 10 for both hardware and software
security. 2x alternating 750g Hd's to back everything up with every night. (not to mention
hard drive tests every so often)
 
Everything good so far. Here is a small picture of almost all the computers
ready to be set up and used :D

PSIofficePcsDoneInClosit.JPG


I will post the build in a bit
 
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