CPU, Memory, OS, raid arrays, what’s important for a dedicated FactoryPMI terminal?
I want to use industrial touch screens. Should I use entire industrial computers, or standard computers coupled with rugged, panel mount displays? What have you been successful with in the past?
It certainly depends on the complexity of your application, but generally any new, cheap computer should work well with FactoryPMI. It can be a Windows machine, Mac, Linux machine, or any platform that runs Java 1.5. To our end user clients we typically we recommend lower end Dell business machines especially for their 3 year warranty.
A fast CPU will produce a noticeable difference in performance when loading very complex screens and in the initial loading and refreshing of large graphing applications. This is due to the fact that projects are tightly encoded to save space, and is required for our distribution/deployment architecture. Once you’ve loaded the screens it shouldn’t make much difference what speed CPU you have.
Memory is a big plus as performance will slow down if you are deficient. Although 512 Megs should be more than enough for a dedicated FactoryPMI terminal, I usually recommend 1 gig. If you have a lot of memory you can “always cache” certain windows for immediate loading.
CPU and memory are the big ticket items for a client. Local disk storage and video card performance are relatively insignificant. It’s important to remember that NO IMPORTANT DATA is stored on the client, so big hard drives, RAID arrays, etc don’t make sense for dedicated FactoryPMI clients.