School computer specs.

[carlyai]

My wife is very active in the community and a couple of days ago we had a monk and team from Bangkok staying at our place.

 

The Bangkok team are checking and arranging support to build a local temple. While here they made an offer to donate computers to the local early years school.

 

I would like some specifications for good desktop computer please.

 

Specs. like: processor, RAM, Graphics card, (motherboard), LAN card, sound system etc. 2 hard drives. All specs. Or a ready made setup.

 

I would plan for individual LAN connection and a switch, and down the road Microsoft server. I would stick with a genuine Microsoft operating system.

 

I have played with these setups before, but not for a good while, so would appreciate any recommendations.

 

I'll pass the information onto the head teacher who asked me to check all this.

 

Sent from my SM-J700F using Tapatalk

 

 

[shady86]

It really depends on your budget and usage. Any modern cpu with 4GB RAM could do basic Internet surfing and word processing but I would invest in 120GB SSD since its dirt cheap now.

[OneMoreFarang]

10 hours ago, carlyai said:

Specs. like: processor, RAM, Graphics card, (motherboard), LAN card, sound system etc. 2 hard drives. All specs. Or a ready made setup.

For "normal" school and office work - not the newest 3D games:

- Any modern Intel or AMD chip, a cheap i3 is fine and fast enough for work

- 8GB - 16GB - 8 does the job, if you never want to update get 16

- If you buy a brand name PC nobody ask for the Motherboard. If you want to assemble it I recommend ASUS

- LAN, Graphic, Sound is all on board

- One SSD with 256GB is enough for work. If you want a lot of space get a 512GB SSD or and extra HDD. But normally you need an extra disk only for lots of photos, videos, etc.

- In theory you can buy it in any shop or online. But if you want service than a "local" shop is always a good idea.

[chrisinth]

16 hours ago, carlyai said:

My wife is very active in the community and a couple of days ago we had a monk and team from Bangkok staying at our place.

The Bangkok team are checking and arranging support to build a local temple. While here they made an offer to donate computers to the local early years school.

I would like some specifications for good desktop computer please.

Specs. like: processor, RAM, Graphics card, (motherboard), LAN card, sound system etc. 2 hard drives. All specs. Or a ready made setup.

I would plan for individual LAN connection and a switch, and down the road Microsoft server. I would stick with a genuine Microsoft operating system.

I have played with these setups before, but not for a good while, so would appreciate any recommendations.

I'll pass the information onto the head teacher who asked me to check all this.

 

I am assuming that the Bkk team are making donations of new computers to the school and they will be to the specs that you provide. Have I got that right? And if it is right, how many computers? (referenced to later).

 

For workstations for an early years school you would want to be looking at something like this:

 

Processor: i3, RAM: DDR4, 4GB, Graphics/LAN/Audio: onboard, SSD 256GB. You would also need to look at monitors, keyboards & mice (usually come with a brand name computer) and operating systems which again usually come with a brand name computer now-a-days.

 

As you want to stay legit (genuine MS OS's) you also need to think about an office suite for the stations for your basic word & excel type programs. There are free ones out there but you would want to look at Office 365 Education which is free to teachers & students. Link is: 

 

https://products.office.com/th-th/student/office-in-education?rtc=1 

 

 

You mentioned Microsoft server further down the road? When you start using MS server software (staying legit) then you need to seriously look at your budget as this is extremely expensive, multiple licenses (including separate licenses for all peripherals attached to it), etc, etc. As you are going to setup a LAN for the workstations, another way to do it is this (or variants of it):

 

Setup a One Drive/Google drive/Box Sync/Sync.com account. In the account that you setup, establish a set of folders so you can later assign access for say, Students, Teachers, All.

 

In addition to the students computers, order an extra computer with specs something like i5/i7 processor, 8 - 16GB DDR4 RAM, 1 or 2 TB HDD/SSD. Setup your cloud account on this machine, keeping a local copy on it, and simply map the folders to the relevant computers that will be allowed access to them. This will give everyone access to everything they need for the cost of one cloud solution. If you feel confident enough, set this solution up on a NAS drive and do the share from there. NAS is an extremely stable way to do this and most allow about 200 shared computers. Synology has Google Drive built in. I currently have 37 computers hooked up to a 6TB (2 x 3TB) Synology NAS drive sharing a Google for Business account flawless for the past year. 

 

NOTE: The reason I asked earlier about how many computers you were talking about is that Microsoft W10 Pro is allowed to share with up to 20 workstations, anything above this steps into the server realm. Only really applicable if using the suggested sharing above and having more than 20 computers.

Edited April 7, 2019 by chrisinth

[carlyai]

Thank you for you detailed answer.

The startup offer is 4 computers.

The Monk who stayed here and visited the community was the financial allocator or checker, so hopefully when he visits for progress payments for the temple, we will get more computers.

I appreciate your comments about MS server and your alternate, though I will have to go back a read some more. I set up a NAS once along time ago and it wasn't fun.

If I have some more questions in the future can I contact you through here or PM or not?

Once I get the specs on paper, would it be best to get them translated to Thai or the computer suppliers understand the specs. in English. Which brings up another question, do you have a preffered supplier?

In a previous life I was the teacher in-charge of the VET, Middle and Secondary schools as well as the school IT coordinator so I know a little bit, that's why the school here asked me to help.

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[carlyai]

For "normal" school and office work - not the newest 3D games:
- Any modern Intel or AMD chip, a cheap i3 is fine and fast enough for work
- 8GB - 16GB - 8 does the job, if you never want to update get 16
- If you buy a brand name PC nobody ask for the Motherboard. If you want to assemble it I recommend ASUS
- LAN, Graphic, Sound is all on board
- One SSD with 256GB is enough for work. If you want a lot of space get a 512GB SSD or and extra HDD. But normally you need an extra disk only for lots of photos, videos, etc.
- In theory you can buy it in any shop or online. But if you want service than a "local" shop is always a good idea.

Thank you for your reply and helpful.

Sent from my SM-J700F using Tapatalk

[OneMoreFarang]

6 hours ago, chrisinth said:

You mentioned Microsoft server further down the road? When you start using MS server software (staying legit) then you need to seriously look at your budget as this is extremely expensive, multiple licenses (including separate licenses for all peripherals attached to it), etc, etc.

That is true for a big network but not for a small one.

Microsoft has since several years the Server Essentials. One time cost of about 20,000THB and it includes licenses for (I think) 25 devices or 50 users. You don't need CALs (Client Access Licenses) like for the big server.

There are some limitations like only one server on the network but for most small networks that is in real life no limitation.

The setup is also easy. An experienced Windows user should be able to do it.

 

Personally I still like Microsoft Software. It has in general a consistent user interface which makes it relative easy to learn it. Linux is obviously cheaper but, IMHO, a lot more complicated - especially for not so experienced users. And Windows "Experts" are a lot easier to find than any other.