Recommend a good workstation for my office?

Forums › IT Pro and developers › Recommend a good workstation for my office?

1 | 2

RalphHinkley

13 posts

Geek

#1377488 1-Sep-2015 05:46

Ragnor: Using Intel NUC's for all our new windows machines at work for the last few years.

I reckon medium term driver/update support from Intel is much better than what Dell/HP provide.

Really? That is interesting. Thanks

graemeh

2078 posts

Uber Geek

#1377555 1-Sep-2015 10:00

RalphHinkley:
graemeh: What are the workstations being used for?

Is it just the usual MS Office apps plus web browser locked on to Facebook and Gmail all day?

Basically yes, this is about the extent of the work for these workstations.

Have you considered a windows tablet with docking station for keyboard/mouse? I'm seeing a lot of people starting to use that type of solution.

You might even be able to set up their phone with bluetooth keyboard and some type of screen to do the job.

If you do go down with a traditional workstation even an i3 desktop machine should do the job.

lxsw20

3552 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#1377558 1-Sep-2015 10:05

Remember with the NUC you have the added cost of a Windows licence.

RalphHinkley

13 posts

Geek

#1378100 2-Sep-2015 10:24

graemeh:
RalphHinkley:
graemeh: What are the workstations being used for?

Is it just the usual MS Office apps plus web browser locked on to Facebook and Gmail all day?

Basically yes, this is about the extent of the work for these workstations.

Have you considered a windows tablet with docking station for keyboard/mouse? I'm seeing a lot of people starting to use that type of solution.

You might even be able to set up their phone with bluetooth keyboard and some type of screen to do the job.

If you do go down with a traditional workstation even an i3 desktop machine should do the job.

Great idea will check it out, thanks for the advice

RalphHinkley

13 posts

Geek

#1378101 2-Sep-2015 10:25

lxsw20: Remember with the NUC you have the added cost of a Windows licence.

True, I hadn't factored that in. Thanks

jhsol

102 posts

Master Geek

#1379432 3-Sep-2015 22:18

Hp EliteDesk 600 or 800 with an i3 or i5, 4-8GB of ram and an SSD. We use the 800s with i5s and SSDs. 100 odd machines and had 2 calls to HP in the last 12 months to replace faulty items (HDDs)

RalphHinkley

13 posts

Geek

#1379479 4-Sep-2015 06:06

jhsol: Hp EliteDesk 600 or 800 with an i3 or i5, 4-8GB of ram and an SSD. We use the 800s with i5s and SSDs. 100 odd machines and had 2 calls to HP in the last 12 months to replace faulty items (HDDs)

100 odd machines? I can see why non fault machines would be important. 2 calls in last year is pretty dam good. Thanks for this first hand info really helpful

Equinox IT

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.

1101

3122 posts

Uber Geek

#1379581 4-Sep-2015 10:36

jhsol: Hp EliteDesk 600 or 800 with an i3 or i5, 4-8GB of ram and an SSD. We use the 800s with i5s and SSDs. 100 odd machines and had 2 calls to HP in the last 12 months to replace faulty items (HDDs)

hmmn, thats a 2% failure rate on the hard drives .

seems a bit high at 1st glance, given the MTBF, but then again
some real world failure rates on some (high capacity) drives are alarming :-(
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/best-hard-drive/

jhsol

102 posts

Master Geek

#1381174 7-Sep-2015 14:50

1101:
jhsol: Hp EliteDesk 600 or 800 with an i3 or i5, 4-8GB of ram and an SSD. We use the 800s with i5s and SSDs. 100 odd machines and had 2 calls to HP in the last 12 months to replace faulty items (HDDs)

hmmn, thats a 2% failure rate on the hard drives .

seems a bit high at 1st glance, given the MTBF, but then again
some real world failure rates on some (high capacity) drives are alarming :-(
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/best-hard-drive/

The sample size is too small. You need to look at the overall failure rate of their HDDs in the hundreds of thousands, not over 100 machines.
The main thing we are after is the support though, we have a 48hour SLA with them and both items arrived on site the following day (so max downtime of a little over 24 hours per person).

It was the Spinning HDDs that failed (some machines have 1TB HDDs). 1 was DOA the other failed about 11 months in.

toyonut

1508 posts

Uber Geek

#1383500 9-Sep-2015 15:39

A benefit of NUC or Brix PCs as well is that if you have LCD screens with the 4 hole mount on the back, you can screw them to the screen using a bracket. Keep it up off the desk and out of sight and keep the cable mess down.

Another option to consider, depending on budget is find a supplier for All in One PC's. Something like the HP EliteOne 800 or ProOne 400 range can be had for reasonable money and your staff get a new monitor with their PC. Lenovo, Acer, Asus and plenty of others do them though as well.

If you are building more than a handful of machines and having to install Windows as well, it is quickly going to turn into a long process, so factor that in before building PC's. PC retailers sometimes supply a prebuilt NUC or BRIX for you though. PB tech and Dove Electronics both do.

Try Vultr using this link and get us both some credit:

http://www.vultr.com/?ref=7033587-3B

RalphHinkley

13 posts

Geek

#1383538 9-Sep-2015 17:03

paulmilbank: A benefit of NUC or Brix PCs as well is that if you have LCD screens with the 4 hole mount on the back, you can screw them to the screen using a bracket. Keep it up off the desk and out of sight and keep the cable mess down.

Another option to consider, depending on budget is find a supplier for All in One PC's. Something like the HP EliteOne 800 or ProOne 400 range can be had for reasonable money and your staff get a new monitor with their PC. Lenovo, Acer, Asus and plenty of others do them though as well.

If you are building more than a handful of machines and having to install Windows as well, it is quickly going to turn into a long process, so factor that in before building PC's. PC retailers sometimes supply a prebuilt NUC or BRIX for you though. PB tech and Dove Electronics both do.

Thanks for the great advice mate.
I actually ended up buying a single i5 NUC a week back and have left it with one of the girls in our office. It has gone really well and she loves it.
I've decided to buy some more and roll em out, probably build them from an image I'm thinking

m1013828

35 posts

Geek

#1388905 17-Sep-2015 11:05

Definitely get a NUC, As a power user I am very happy with an I5 Haswell NUC with 8GB of ram and 128GB of storage.
I was cheeky and ran a VM off a USB 3 HDD, that didn't work so well, but I could hardly blame the NUC.

Gigabyte BRIX are thicker NUCs with more grunt if that's required, though I haven't put one to the test myself, their flagship one with Iris Pro graphics piques my interest.

RalphHinkley

13 posts

Geek

#1389402 18-Sep-2015 06:21

m1013828: Definitely get a NUC, As a power user I am very happy with an I5 Haswell NUC with 8GB of ram and 128GB of storage.
I was cheeky and ran a VM off a USB 3 HDD, that didn't work so well, but I could hardly blame the NUC.

Gigabyte BRIX are thicker NUCs with more grunt if that's required, though I haven't put one to the test myself, their flagship one with Iris Pro graphics piques my interest.

Yes the NUCs are great aren't they, and thanks for the info on the gigabyte BRIX they too look cool, the tiny iris pro model sports a formidable quad core i5! Cheers

TwoSeven

1623 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#1390432 19-Sep-2015 20:26

RalphHinkley:
graemeh: What are the workstations being used for?

Is it just the usual MS Office apps plus web browser locked on to Facebook and Gmail all day?

Basically yes, this is about the extent of the work for these workstations.

Out of interest, the term workstation has a pretty specific definition and does spec with quite a bit of high end componentry. I believe you are referring to what is colloquially referred to as a 'business desktop' - which means you can spec them quite a bit lower. My suggestion would be a core I5, 16Gb memory and a 254Gb SSD would be fine, don't forget to factor in the OS license, monitor, keyboard and mouse.

Software Engineer
(the practice of real science, engineering and management)
A.I. (Automation rebranded)
Gender Neutral
(a person who believes in equality and who does not believe in/use stereotypes. Examples such as gender, binary, nonbinary, male/female etc.)

...they/their/them...

wanghou168

453 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1390456 19-Sep-2015 21:41

NUC is great, i5 should do the job, spend the extra on RAM and SSD :p

ThinkCentre or Thinkpad is another great option.

MOBILE: Huawei P30
OTHER: Thinkpad E14 + Asus Vivobook + Intel NUC5i3 + A family of Raspberry Pi x 9 + Amazon Echo

1 | 2