Open Dental Forum

The computer my server runs on is approaching 6 years old. I was considering replacing it and moving that PC to a simple client desktop. Should I go with a Solid state hard drive or a standard? The last computer was a Dell optiplex with sufficient CPU and ram speed. The new one will have sufficient stats as well just need to decide on the hard drive.

If you can get an SSD, always go SSD.

SSD no question.

The early iterations had some issues but those are long gone.

An SSD on the server will make Open Dental run noticeably faster because it won't have to wait as long for data coming from the database.

I built my own with SSD and SSD backup drive. I, stupidly, had my server in the utility room where it was quite humid. I barely replaced it in time. I copied all files to the new drive. I was going to make a backup copy and the damned drive died. Thank goodness the first copy was good! Moved it out of the utility room and it sings like a bird. Karen's replicator once again works for backups. They now have support for mysql.

If you are deploying a new server take a serious look at using RAID Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks.

I put my operating system on RAID 1 and have a separate RAID 5 array for data.

I have also moved to using this configuration to set up the host machine and then mount the a virtual machine to act as the actual server.

SSD’s are great have come way down in price if you have the budget use them in an array but I would prioritize using a VM setup.

Also consider putting a redundant power supply in ( they are one of the most common things to fail )