Opinions please

[Kiest26]

Which operating system are you going to be going with? As Microsoft recently announced that the latest Gen of Intel and AMD CPU's are 'incompatible' with anything lower than Windows 10 and therefore are blocking all Windows updates for anything lower than 10

[LeMarchand]

Also, those who have SSD's, what size do you have?

 

120GB, though in "multi user" environments like a suite this may require some managing depending on what you do with profiles.

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Dammit, I'd then need to buy them off Dave! Dave, is £5 profit per machine (plus your lovely three year warranty of course) enough? You can keep the HDDs!

 

 

Hahaha! £5? Probably not, might need a tiny bit more than that

 

Having said that you would be saving me having to upgrade the iMacs to SSDs myself. That's gotta be worth something, I hate fighting for screws with the magnets around the display!

[3s-gtech]

Haha yeah that's a joyful job! Took me ages to upgrade our existing 2009 ones.

 

On topic:

 

I would recommend SSDs above the latest and greatest processors and chipsets. The performance difference of a Ivy Bridge or Haswell i5 vs a Kaby Lake one will be minimal in the applications that most schools use. Obviously the product lifecycle will be slightly shorter, but I tend to find schools keep their refurb machines just as long as they keep their brand new ones. I would also recommend getting good screens - I invested in ensuring that every screen I fitted since 2010 is a 22" 1080P model or better. That screen estate and big display has made a huge difference in productivity (most of the students use snap to work on multiple documents etc) and it looks smart which has an impact on product perception. Not expensive either.

[manamaga2512]

Which operating system are you going to be going with? As Microsoft recently announced that the latest Gen of Intel and AMD CPU's are 'incompatible' with anything lower than Windows 10 and therefore are blocking all Windows updates for anything lower than 10

 

Yea, we'll be W10 all throughout.

[manamaga2512]

120GB, though in "multi user" environments like a suite this may require some managing depending on what you do with profiles.

 

I'm beginning to think that 120 will be enough. We are a GAFE Academy so each member of staff and students have their own google account. We have minimal network storage (mainly for a handful of admin). Everyone is told not to store anything on the desktop / local docs folders etc. and they use their google storage. 120 should be find for an OS/Office?Adobe Suite and a handful of small apps such as VLC.

[mthomas08]

I'm beginning to think that 120 will be enough. We are a GAFE Academy so each member of staff and students have their own google account. We have minimal network storage (mainly for a handful of admin). Everyone is told not to store anything on the desktop / local docs folders etc. and they use their google storage. 120 should be find for an OS/Office?Adobe Suite and a handful of small apps such as VLC.

 

We clear our profiles around every 3 months and even if we didn't it's not an issue for us. The only ones who may have issues are those who save a ton of work locally or keep copies locally of their USB drive data. Outside of Film studies (which now have a NAS drive) for us there isn't a reason why we can't swap out to 120GB SSDs throughout our network which is my plan in next years budget. No joke - plan on getting 200-300 of them.

[manamaga2512]

Thanks to all for your input. I'm in discussions with ICT Direct and BIST.

Now my next question is, and I'm think to do this during the summer holidays, our current AD is on 2008R2. I'd like to get it onto 2012 but, do I upgrade or build a new AD? I've never done either so will have to read up, and as my employer is not taking on another network manager (following the departure of my previous manager) it falls to me to get this done.

[Kiest26]

Thanks to all for your input. I'm in discussions with ICT Direct and BIST.

Now my next question is, and I'm think to do this during the summer holidays, our current AD is on 2008R2. I'd like to get it onto 2012 but, do I upgrade or build a new AD? I've never done either so will have to read up, and as my employer is not taking on another network manager (following the departure of my previous manager) it falls to me to get this done.

 

I'd just upgrade; its just a matter of adding a new DC to your existing domain and demoting the old. There's no real advantage to starting a fresh it's just going to cause you significantly more work for no real benefit.

 

The process is very well documented a quick Google search turned up the links below:

 

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/canitpro/2013/05/05/step-by-step-adding-a-windows-server-2012-domain-controller-to-an-existing-windows-server-2003-network/

 

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771844(v=ws.10).aspx

[PotNoodleTech]

You'd have to do a HECK of a lot of convincing to convince me to buy new machines nowadays.

 

In this financial climate I let fat cat multinational companies buy new stuff from dell, use them for 3 years, make a massive loss, then sell off cheap to me via a refurb shop like ICT Direct.

 

E.g. = http://www.ict-direct.co.uk/computers/refurbished-desktop-computers/dell/ultra-small-desktop/optiplex-7010-usff/dell-optiplex-7010-usff.html

 

Why pay double? Dell machines are solid I've been using them for 10 years no issues out of the hundreds and hundreds other than the odd dead hard disk and one power supply or two.