# Windows 10 or Server

**URL:** <https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/windows-10-or-server/39281>\
**Category:** Ignition\
**Created:** [October 1, 2020, 7:00pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/windows-10-or-server/39281 "2020-10-01T19:00:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bwhite](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/bwhite/32/7112_2.png) [@bwhite](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/bwhite)\
**Post date:** [October 1, 2020, 7:00pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/windows-10-or-server/39281/1 "2020-10-01T19:00:25Z")

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I am planning to buy a small Ignition server for a customer. They will be using 2-3 clients and have probably less than 2000 tags. I am looking at either a small server class machine (Dell) or a higher end desktop machine. The desktop comes with Windows 10 PRO and the server comes with Server 2019. I am looking for some advice on which would be the better choice. I will be using MS SQL Express for the tag historian database.

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**Author:** ![witman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d2c977/32.png) [@witman](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/witman)\
**Post date:** [October 1, 2020, 7:13pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/windows-10-or-server/39281/2 "2020-10-01T19:13:47Z")

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I haven’t looked at this in depth, but we’ve ended up with some on Windows 10 Pro (including slower Beckhoff embedded PCs) and some on Windows Server. That project sounds like something a desktop will run alright.

Ideally the DB would be on a separate machine. We no longer have any DBs on the same machine as an Ignition server and I wouldn’t try it on one of the Beckhoff embedded PCs we have running Ignition with only 4 GB RAM (for standalone machines). If putting them on the same machine, I believe you’ll want to have plenty of RAM and reserve enough for Ignition up front so the DB doesn’t grab too much.