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If your accounting software needs that much horsepower, something's wrong.
Me? I'd instantly create a VM and be done with it. Now I tend to buy higher end laptops, and I always get at least 64GB of ram. But as others have said, an itty-bitty cube PC with an external USB drive and you are done.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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The requirements on their web site are:
Intel Xeon (*1) + 8 Gb RAM + 100 Gb SSD or SAS.
Given their crazy requirements I thought of getting something that could run that software and some of the things I have now in my NAS at the same time and make it a little future proof...
I agree you... something is wrong here... I have two options: paying for a monthly fee and not owning the program and therefore risking losing the data if I can't pay after a financial apocalypse (nothing that worries me much by now) or getting a massive computer and pay for a monthly fee to get maintenance... something that if I stop paying will leave me with a functional program and data.
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Joan M wrote: I could use require SSD and Windows to run.
I could see the second but I doubt the first. Unless perhaps you wanted to use floppies?
Joan M wrote: Would it be better to get a tower server? or a rack server?...8TB of data space available would be nice.
What?!?!
Just to run accounting software?
Looking at 'QuickBooks Desktop' it does suggest 16GB of memory. It is not an online solution. Storage is 2.5GB on drive.
And QuickBooks is probably overkill.
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The requirements on their web site are:
Intel Xeon (*1) + 8 Gb RAM + 100 Gb SSD or SAS.
Given their crazy requirements I thought of getting something that could run that software and some of the things I have now in my NAS at the same time and make it a little future proof...
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As others have said, a small "cube" PC should suffice.
HOWEVER I see no mention of the required operating system. Recently my nephew consulted me on new server hardware to run the latest version of their ERP software, but that was nothing compared to the OS requirement (Windows Server 2019 minimum, CALs, SQL Server, 1 license per user) which could have tripled the cost of the replacement.
What do they require? Will it run single user on Windows 10/11?
Frankly, seeing as they only require 8GB ram I doubt that it merits a Xeon with Windows Server on it.
So old that I did my first coding in octal via switches on a DEC PDP 8
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Joan M wrote: The requirements on their web site are:
I pulled the previous post from their website. Click on "Hardware and operating system requirements"
https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/help-article/product-system-requirements/system-requirements-quickbooks-desktop-2023/L36CSOf2x_US_en_US[^]
Disk Space...2.5GB of disk space
What it does say is the following. However that is just marketing noise because ANY software that is sourced on a SSD drive is going to be faster because SSD is faster. Absolutely does not mean it is required.
For the best performance, store your QuickBooks data file on a solid-state drive (SSD).
Also repeating what I said QuickBooks is likely overkill and there are alternatives. You can google the following
"QuickBooks Desktop" single user alternative
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I already have an accountant software that is super old, but it works well, the only issue is that it's not maintained anymore by the manufacturer and currently it won't pass the new legislation.
And I was trying to start another one that is based on PHP and MySQL and it makes more than what I need + it's free... but it won't cope with the legal requirements.
The idea behind that legislation is that you can be charged 60k € only because you have a program that doesn't have a hash between invoices, that doesn't keep a log of any change made in critical documents and soon that it doesn't automatically send the invoices to the government as soon they are issued, you don't have to be doing something wrong with your program, but as you could do something wrong, they can punish you...
This is crazy and creates stupid needs: the small companies can't follow up those rules and can't update their software on time and the big ones have softwares with crazy requirements that for sure I don't have.
I guess the next year will be funny for lots of small companies here...
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Joan M wrote: As soon as we have children the server, NAS, UPS..
Yeah that probably isn't a good design idea.
With children you need an entire room with a bolt lock at the top of the door. Where you can reach and they cannot (even on a chair.)
That should work until they get big enough to understand and respect 'no'.
Even better if you make sure that there is never anything fun in that room. Then even when they get older they will stay out.
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You REALLY should also backup your data to the cloud, even if it means you have to encrypt it yourself. If you get a fire, everything could be gone and that is NOT and acceptable situation for the tax department.
The good thing is that accounting software has no special hardware requirements and yes, put it in a VM in order to easily move it around.
Aside from the other concerns: don't you use an accountant to do all those things for you?
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That's why I rotate the HDD used to make copies and I place them in a different physical location every month. I really don't like to send lots of important and sensitive data into the cloud... More if that data occupies a lot of space.
Precisely the bad thing here is that any accounting software that copes with the new laws in my country have crazy requirements. Otherwise, I would have not made the post.
Nope, making the repetitive tasks (invoices, expenses, ...) reduce a lot the monthly fee of the accountant... And I can check any results, payment dates... at any moment, it's much more convenient, cheaper and fast.
Thanks for your post!
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It should be easy enough to zip your backups into a file, encrypt the file with 256 bit AES encryption, and store the encrypted file in a dropbox account or onedrive or something else.
Trusting your backup only to USB has a high risk of going wrong if a disaster should happen on the wrong moment.
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Leaving apart the safety/privacy concerns and several legal documents between our company and our customers which, in some cases specifically prevent us to use the cloud for anything, I really don't know how to automate the storage of database data in snapshot files that could be compressed and uploaded into the cloud in an easy way, now, I have the backup done automatically by my NAS, storing the settings for the NAS itself, the application settings and the data of everything (even the databases) into an external HDD to be able to perform a bare metal recovery.
I can see the advantages of having backups decentralized but I can see also the problems related to all this starting with the amount of data to be backed up, which is too big to be possible every single night and don't let me start with incremental backups nor separating that data in smaller zip files, that really don't work...
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I don't say this to be mean but when you say "I really don't know how to..." don't you think that you should learn how? Or if you can't, you pay a consultant to do that for you?
You say you have clients. Those clients depend on you. Don't you think you owe it to the clients to make guarantees about disaster recovery? You say you keep USB disk offsite but you rotate them.
Suppose something happens while you rotate them, (a fire breaks out of there is a big power surge) and everything is gone.
Let me turn the question around: you say there are specific documents prohibiting you from using the cloud. Does that mean your customers have agreed with being only 1 disaster away from losing their data?
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Not everybody wants to work with the cloud, a few of my customers ask to avoid it specifically in their contracts given the confidential nature of their software.
I work for my customers since 1998, they are happy with what they get from me (which is an excellent service as they deserve).
My customers have a weekly copy of their software (or in the worst case at the end of the project, because they decide to go this way). Copy #1.
I have a NAS at the office (multiple disks with RAID 10). Copy #2.
All is inside my laptop (of course fully encrypted). Copy #3.
And of course, the backups are rotating monthly in different places. Copy #4 (which in fact is #4 and #5 as I rotate the building where those backups are placed every month).
When I said I didn't know how to do it, I meant, I don't know how to send multiple GB of data daily to the cloud, just because it would not be enough time to send all that every single night.
I can do incremental backups and... yes... maybe being older gives me the experience of having an incremental backup unusable because one of the tapes decided to fail, making it impossible to recover something. So no, thanks.
If all my customers, my NAS my laptop, and the external location where the rotated HDD lays burns at the same time (or get a super-massive power surge), maybe we would be facing the WWIII and then I would not really be worried for that except to spend time with my wonderful wife (maybe in the cloud already / the real one).
Hope it is clearer now, but in any case, I wanted help to choose a server... which maybe it won't be needed after all as it seems Odoo could work even in my NAS, let's cross fingers and hope this will work.
Thanks for your post Bruno.
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"Tablets were replaced by scrolls . Scrolls were replaced by Books . Now we scroll through through books on tablets ."
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Oh crap. - That's right.
Stupid us all. 
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Background: I've had this old HP LaserJet for years and try to give it a little occasional exercise to stop it seizing up. So yesterday, had a bit of B/W printing to do so though I'd take her for a spin ...
Printer has vanished from the list. OK, probably to do with the Win 11 upgrade. So I use the Windows Add Printer dialogue and it installs. Yay, this is easy.
I try printing to it. Quick as a flash, nothing happens. Document is in the print queue with the helpful message "There was an error." But it does let me cancel it and try again, with similar results.
Okay, I'll uninstall it and try again. After what seemed like successful removal, it's still there.
So, I run the troubleshooter which, surprise surprise, says that maybe making it the default printer will work. It doesn't. But we have now moved on - it can no longer use this as the excuse. This time it gives me a link to a HP page to download the correct driver. The link is to a page that doesn't exits.
Okay, now the gloves are off. HP Print & Scan Doctor which of course won't run until I update it. But then - KAPOW! It tells me that the standard Windows drivers might be inadequate and I should install the full set of drivers "Downloadable here." This link works, the file downloads but crashes out every time I try to run it.
I find another link to download all the drivers singly. I try it and this time it tells me not to use these but to use the Windows version that I started with.
At this point, I accept defeat and use the other printer. But now is where it gets interesting ...
I return home at about midnight and wake up the PC. Before I do anything else, there's a flashing of lights and a whirring sound and a single page pops out of the LaserJet. This was a document sent to the printer in May 2021!
It now becomes clear to me that the name "LaserJet" is in fact derived from "Lazarus" and I appear to have gained the ability to raise the dead.
Printer now seems to work perfectly.
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Quote: Printer now seems to work perfectly.
Except the current document printout will be available in 2025.
"In testa che avete, Signor di Ceprano?"
-- Rigoletto
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"LaserJet, come forth". 
At least you have yours working. That's good.
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ok, that's funny. Come over and clean my laptop screen!
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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Rich Leyshon wrote: I appear to have gained the ability to raise the dead.
I would recommend that you stay away from cemeteries. 
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Rich Leyshon wrote: I've had this old HP LaserJet for years and try to give it a little occasional exercise to stop it seizing up.
I've been wondering about that.
When my previous employer shut down (as part of an acquisition), nobody wanted the big LaserJet printer it had owned for many years - I don't know how long exactly. I think the company was roughly 6 years old at the time, so assuming it was bought brand new when the company was founded, it was 6 years old when I brought it home.
That was in 2006. Which means it's now 23 years old.
I clearly remember using it with XP--in fact I still have the driver installer for XP in my software archive. I'm still using it today with Windows 10, and a lot of Linux distros pick it up automatically. These days if I power it up twice every 3 months, it had a busy quarter - I really hardly ever print. But, I'll still say it has served me well, with no indication after all this time it's about to run into mechanical failures (fingers crossed).
It's a LaserJet 4350, with - I think - all accessories you could get for it at the time. There's two 500-sheet trays, a duplexer, I believe is what it's called (which lets you print on both sides of a sheet), and even a stapler (assuming you're not trying to staple more than 5-6 pages together). It's big and heavy, so I think that's why nobody wanted it.
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dandy72 wrote: It's big and heavy, so I think that's why nobody wanted it.
It's probably also an electricity guzzler, at least compared to modern laser printers.
OTOH, if you turn it on only a couple of times a quarter - who cares?
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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