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Selecting a Computer to Host Your Vound Software


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Selecting a Computer to Host Your Vound Software
 

It is always important to select a computer with ample resources to run the software that will be installed on the host machine, as well as the various tasks the system will be supporting. With today’s large case sizes, this is especially important when you are choosing a computer that will be running any form of ESI processing software. Below is a link to the most important hardware elements to consider when selecting a computer to host Intella and Connect: 

 

Selecting A Computer To Host Your Vound Software

  

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What exact computer should I get to use with Intella? 

 

We get this question a lot. The issue with answering it accurately is as follows.

 

In our opinion there are five factors to a successful job. Ignore these five factors and even highest specification system may not be enough to ensure success. 

 

The user/reviewers experience

An experienced user can get away with a much lesser computer if he/she manages that system correctly. If they plan the case and train the reviewers to not undertake tasks such as  tag 1/4 million items for no real need. Not to export unnecessarily and not to tax the system with other applications.  In short to understand and to think about the effects of his/her action on the other reviewers.

 

The evidence

The 80/20 rule can apply here. 80% of your data will be fine and index with no issues. 20% will take as long as the other 80% if it has corruption or does not play well with others. The users experience applies here, they will need to know how to spot, identify and repair any issues. 

 

Example: If you are not checking the data how will you know that something has not been missed or needed pre processing before indexing. Perhaps your AV has blocked 20% of your data, or you needed to preprocess some files so that Intella can read them. Encrypted, OCR, custom metadata fields and some older mail formats come to mind).  

 

There is also the makeup of the data to consider. If you have 100 gigabytes of zipped files that contain 1 gig + text files that can affect the case dramatically. Again the user needs to understand the data they are indexing. 

 

Mail containers such as PST/OST/NSF will take more resources than loose docs. The system specifications needed for 1TB of mail containers will be very different to 1TB of loose documents.

 

The system specifications and usage

Spec the system to the importance of the job and the other four factors. Don't understand the data makeup? Have inexperienced users who click first and ask questions later?  When the lawyer / reviewer insists on adding a million items to a tag followed by exporting all million to PDF / TIFF so he can print them off - where he is one of eight reviewer on the case. Add a hardware buffer and offer training.  

 

The software

How well the software performs will impact on the computer needed. But again the best software on earth when faced with inexperienced users and data corruption can sometimes have issues.  A high spec machine is no guarantee of a perfect case. 

 

 

The deadline - A.K.A the 2am factor

Often the biggest factor. If the case really, really has to be done in a week. 

 

  • Spec the computer to ensure it will not be a problem.
  • Plan the case. What tags will be used. What will be tagged.  When and what will be printed / exported by who and so on. 
  • Ensure the users are trained to be able to follow the best practice you specify
  • Look at the data. What is the make up. Does it have a lot of files that will be of no use to you. Can you de-dup ahead of indexing to reduce the volume. 
  • If you are using load files have you agreed a format prior to accepting / creation of the load file. I cannot tell you how often we get support questions that start with "My load file is not working"  
  • Finally - BACK UP THE CASE. Failure to do so will end in tears. 

 

 

So when we are asked what computer should we use for 1TB of data the above is why it is hard to answer.  What would save us a lot of time would be to offer a blanket answer such as. Get a Dell Precision 7920 with 64-256 RAM, including appropriate drive configuration (or equivalent other brand). That would be $15K-25K+. It will ensure the computer is up to the task but in many cases it would be overkill, it will not guarantee of a perfect job 100% of the time, and it is out of many people's budget. 

 

Hope this helps in some way.

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  • jon.pearse changed the title to Selecting a Computer to Host Your Vound Software
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