How Do I Provide a Workstation To Last 15 Years?

An anonymous reader writes "My father is a veterinarian with a small private practice. He runs all his patient/client/financial administration on two simple workstations, linked with a network cable. The administration application is a simple DOS application backed by a database. Now the current systems, a Pentium 66mhz and a 486, both with 8MB of RAM and 500MB of hard drive space, are getting a bit long in the tooth. The 500MB harddrives are filling up, the installed software (Windows 95) is getting a bit flakey at times. My father has asked me to think about replacing the current setup. I do know a lot about computers, but my father would really like the new setup to last 10-15 years, just like the current one has. I just dont know where to begin thinking about that kind of systems lifetime. Do I buy, or build myself? How many spare parts should I keep in reserve? What will fail first, and how many years down the line will that happen?"

Comments

Moving parts are the main problem

[jonbryce]

Hard drives and fans will be the first to fail as they have moving parts.

You can get systems that don't need fans, but replacing the hard drives with flash memory probably isn't going to help reliability.

Re:Moving parts are the main problem

[Shivani1141]

Not so with the flash drives. I was looking into an equivalent for MTBF for flash drives, and not finding one i started looking into the maximum capacity of writes, and found an article extolling a sort of half-life figure for flash drives. looking into the drive i have installed in my media center (for Quiet) an OCZ model. i found that i'd have to be writing to the drive at maximum capacity 24/7 for 18 years before the available capacity of the drive would decrease by half. they're quite long-lived, if the maximum writes per sector figures are to be believed.

Re:Moving parts are the main problem

[mariushm]

Build a computer with a processor that has very low frequency, something like an AMD Sempron LE-1300.

It runs by default at 2300Mhz but you should be able to lower it to something like 1Ghz or maybe even lower, which will increase the compatibility with DOS (if needed and if there are any incompatibility) and it also means that the computer will run even without the fan running over the processor.

You can solve the power supply fan problems by buying a passively cooler power supply.

You could also get a SSD drive or maybe a cheap Flash to IDE/SATA adapter and use 1 or 2 GB compact Flash card for DOS.

Though you can simply create a virtual machine or even DosBox (if you don't need some complex printing functions)..

Re:Moving parts are the main problem

[mysidia]

Keep in mind that it may be prudent to pick less-reliable hardware that should still last 4 or 5 years (most likely), over slightly more-reliable hardware, WHEN the price difference makes it more cost-effective to ANTICIPATE replacement.

Even the most reliable components may be expected to fail in 5 years.

I think he's been very fortunate that his setup has lasted 15 years. On average, a computer has had a lifetime of 5 years, before some hardware failures occur. To be honest.. in many cases, newer hard drives has been less reliable or has not lasted as long.

The higher data density results in more failures not less. The more bits (at essentially the same rate of defects), means it's much more probable for there to be at least one sector defective on a larger drive.

Power supplies can fail within 1 year or 10. It's random, so there can be no guarantee that the setup will last 15 years without any hardware replacement. (Even using the hardware he has right now, something could have failed in 1 year. A drive could go completely bad tomorrow.)

So get a very decent power supply, preferably one that is efficient at the anticipated load (which you should calculate for the chosen hardware), but can handle a lot more.

Using SSDs would improve reliability if used in a RAID 1 array, and a choice made with decent cache and wear-levelling, provided your app is reasonable they should last 50 years (typical use level), more likely the RAM dies first.

But unfortunately, the suitable SSDs of any reasonable size are also highly expensive. the cheaper ones don't have the few gigabytes or so of battery-backed RAM cache that would be necessary for high speed. --- Which come to think of it, may also be a reliability risk, since most types of rechargeable batteries don't last 15 years.

And I expect you don't need high speed for a small veterinary database, so the most inexpensive SLC or MLC may be just what the doctor ordered..

Another possible application for flash is simply to boot off of it, and then use an ordinary mechanical hard drive for storing your data. This way, mechanical wear is not introduced when you boot your OS, and writes are rarely required.

However, Windows XP (or Vista) is not suitable for this, as it likes to write to its own boot media. A Linux-based kiosk with a mysql-backed database app of some sort could work great there.

Make sure you get a lot more space than you need, i.e. try to fit everything you need within 5 or 6 GBs. And use a 50gb drive, so you can have an "active" partition and "backup" partition

Minimize mechanical wear on your drives by getting enough memory to run the workstations without a swapfile or pagefile. i.e. get 1GB or 2GB (a workstation that can use ECC memory is better, as you reduce the small possibility of silent data corruption), and make sure you disable all paging/swapping features within your OS.

Use the most reliable drives available for a reasonable cost; these are probably NOT 1TB 7200RPM drives; these are more likely 30gb 5000RPM drives that come with a 3 year or 5 year warranty.

Have each workstation backup the other workstation, i.e. so there are always two copies of the database. This is in addition to daily backups to external media to be stored offsite.

Unless you are using a UNIX/Linux OS with a journalled filesystem (or something like ZFS), it's pretty much a fact, that you are likely going to need an OS recovery at least once.

Each workstation should have two drives and a 'working partition' and backup partition. That you manually refresh every few months. Even better if they are separate physical disks (but again, more expensive)

Reliability will be maximized if you use a UNIX or Linux based application. And you minimize unnecessary reads and writes to your mechanical media, and minimize unnecessary load (and therefore heat) emitted by your hardware.

In any case, the usernames logging into the worksta

Re:Moving parts are the main problem

[ThePhilips]

Any chances that you still have the link(s)?

Because my reading of Anand's research tells me that in active, non-stop use SSD would fail in about the same time as normal laptop 1.8"/2.5" harddrives - 1-1.5 years. Limit on number of rewrite cycles is high (~100k), yet is quite easy to reach.

Re:Moving parts are the main problem

[mmarlett]

Assuming that you have to rewrite his software, make it all web based (even if it runs off of one machine as a server without the Internet) and forgetaboutit. Keep it as basic and generic as possible and then the hardware will never matter.

Re:Moving parts are the main problem

[cbiltcliffe]

Well, since the old machines are 15 years old, and still running fine, my suggestion would be this:

Don't buy a new one. Don't build a new one. If you must have a backup computer, find another old machine that's in somebody's basement, garage, or otherwise not being used.
Build a low-power machine (Celeron, Sempron, whatever) with quality parts (3 year warranty, at least), with RAID, install Linux on it, and use it as storage for the database.
Pull the cover from the old machines, take an air compressor to them to clean them out, then replace all the fans. Again, use high quality parts.
Format and reinstall Windows on both, so the flakiness goes away. Install all updates, and the customer/patient management database, and configure it all to access the data on the server.
Then, pull the drive, and use something like Clonezilla on a laptop with a USB-IDE adapter to take an image of the drive and save it on the server.
Now you've got a couple of clean machines, with fresh software, redundancy for the data, and nobody has to deal with a change as drastic as Win95 to Vista.
If a drive fails, you've got an image of the software preconfigured.

After you've done this, keep an eye out for old drives in the 1-5GB range. Try to get at least 3 or 4 that work well, so you've got spares for when one fails.

As long as you don't get hit with a power surge or something, this is the most likely failure of anything this old, as it's just too low powered to generate enough heat to cause too many problems.
And if you need them, I've got a couple of AT type power supplies kicking around that work fine.

Also, make sure a proper backup is done of the data on the server. If he's got Internet access, encrypt it (GnuPG with a strong password or key) and send it to a gmail account, or something like that. Otherwise, a removable or USB drive that he can take offsite.

Re:Moving parts are the main problem

[nietsch]

But unfortunately, the suitable SSDs of any reasonable size are also highly expensive. the cheaper ones don't have the few gigabytes or so of battery-backed RAM cache that would be necessary for high speed. --- Which come to think of it, may also be a reliability risk, since most types of rechargeable batteries don't last 15 years.

ehm, Nand flash ram by itself is pretty fast, and Linux can natively handle it. Unfortunately, all available flash is slowed down behind some disk emulation chipset, which would make battery backed ram necessary. Just wait a few more months till the real good ssd come available... (as always in IT, things will be better later).

Re:Moving parts are the main problem

[Shivani1141]

Ah, found one of my original articles, oddly the one corroborating it 404s now. please, read it and make your own conclusions. http://www.storagesearch.com/ssdmyths-endurance.html

Re:Moving parts are the main problem

[Glonoinha]

Have you *ever* seen HDD surviving 80 years? Nope. (Ask any SAN admin for references.)

That's not how MTBF works. It's an aggregate across the entire enterprise. Let's say you populate your infrastructure with 1,000 2.4" SSD's with a MTBF of 1,000,000 hours. In theory, you can assume that you're going to have one drive fail every 1,000 hours (or roughly one failure every 6 weeks, or roughly 9 failed drives each year.)

Re:Moving parts are the main problem

[Anpheus]

I'm going to go ahead and throw out the idea that maybe the people who develop these SSDs are smart enough to realize that.

Re:Moving parts are the main problem

[fractoid]

True, but I think the vet in question wants the actual box to last 15 years, so the tips above are useful too.

I'd just add that you should try to stay away from anything with electrolytic capacitors on it. They're usually the first thing to go - these days some motherboards are advertised as "no electro caps".

Re:Moving parts are the main problem

[David Jao]

Any chances that you still have the link(s)?

Because my reading of Anand's research tells me that in active, non-stop use SSD would fail in about the same time as normal laptop 1.8"/2.5" harddrives - 1-1.5 years. Limit on number of rewrite cycles is high (~100k), yet is quite easy to reach.

The article you cite does not contain the 1-1.5 years figure anywhere. How did you get that number? For what it's worth, I've been using solid state drives in both my laptops for more than a year now, with no problems whatsoever.

Another very important point which often gets ignored is that a solid state drive failure is far more benign than a spinning platter drive failure. When a solid state drive fails, you lose the ability to write data, but you can still read data. On the other hand, failure of a spinning platter drive means that you can't read your data anymore, at least not without sending it to a very expensive data recovery firm.

Re:Moving parts are the main problem

[doodleboy]

My full solution would be a fanless rig, with RAID 1 for full redundancy of disks so if a hard disk fails, it doesn't take your data with it, and weekly backups to DAT tape stored off-site. Then I'd use a pair of power supplies, using a diode to prevent power from one from getting into the other, and a zener diode or 78 series linear regulators to ensure a failing supply can't overpower any one line. Then, from my little power circuit, the two power supplies would feed the one motherboard, which would be underclocked at reduced voltage. It would have the highest possible amount of RAM in it, because that would reduce the writes to the hard drives.

On the software side, I would consider hosting the DOS app on linux using an emulator such as dosemu or dosbox. The OP's dad would have an environment very similar to what he's using now. I would probably use Debian stable for both boxes, which has very long release cycles and is very stable.

With linux comes the option to replace the DAT tapes with an off-site rsync over ssh. If the main box dies, you'd be able to just swap in the backup box in a couple of minutes. If the data set isn't very large the mirror will complete in a couple of seconds. It's very easy to do:

Create a RSA public/private key pair: ssh-keygen -t rsa, press enter at the password prompts.

Copy the public key to the remote box: ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub remotebox.

Have a nightly cron job to push the files: rsync -ave ssh --delete /localfiles/ remotebox:/localfiles.

For bonux points you could even throw in snapshots.

I'm backing up hundreds of partitions this way at work, each with snapshots going back a month. Tapes are slow, unreliable and expensive. I would not use them for any purpose.

Buy any current workstation and...

[Anonymous Coward]

Virtualize!

Then your father's old setup can remain DOS and Win95 effectively forever, on any modern hardware. I've done this for lots of clients with legacy WinNT and Win95 systems.

The process is called "physical to virtual" (P2V) migration.

Re:Buy any current workstation and...

[amcdiarmid]

Mod parent up.

You need DOS and Win96 compatibility: You can virtualize the existing system into a new system, and make it portible; back-up-able (as a Virtual Machine) by virtualizing it.

As an aside, I always thought Win95 was a dog. You may wish to check to see if XP compatibility mode will work, or check (ha ha) to see if WINE will work. (Actually, trying the application set with WINE is not a bad idea - it should be compatible with Windows 95 by now.)

Remember it could be worse: I have a friend who deals with Vet who has an old Xenix system - they buy parts of ebay in bulk;)

forget it

[Arthurio]

Tell him that replacing the system every 5 years will be cheaper than getting one that will last 15 years. There, problem solved.

Re:forget it

[vajorie]

lol, it's her father, not her client.

Re:forget it

[rennerik]

Sometimes (most of the time) users don't know what they want, especially when it comes to IT. Many times they ask for the wrong things, and make the wrong decisions. It's our job, as IT consultants, to let them know what the best solution to the problem would be.

For example, asking, "Why do you want your setup to last fifteen years?" may yield answers like, "I don't want to deal with the costs involved with constantly upgrading" or "I'm familiar with my current system, and I am willing to change, but I don't want to have to refamiliarize myself with it every five years" or maybe even "I don't want to have to pay for someone to upgrade our systems every five years."

All of those answers are perfectly reasonable, but all of them are misinformed. It's our job to let them know that, yes, it may sound expensive at first to upgrade every five years, but putting together a bullet-proof system to last fifteen years is much more expensive. We can also explain how to remain compatible (say, via virtualization, as stated in another post) so they don't have to relearn everything every five years. In fact, the experience remains consistent well into the future. And finally, we can say that, again, the costs incurred with upgrading hardware every five years is much less than designing a system that needs to last at least fifteen years... not to mention, the system still has to be maintained, rigorously, so those costs don't just go away simply because the system has been designed to last a longer period of time.

If, after all of that, they're still set in their ways and aren't willing to take your advice, then I suppose you just have to do what they want... but it would be disingenuous for IT professionals to just do what the user asks on spec, because, as said before, most of the time they don't know or understand what they want. There's a reason why we're the professionals and they're not (i.e., I'm not going to tell an architect that I want a house without a foundation and expect him not to tell me I'm an idiot). Why do people insist on doing that when it comes to IT?

Re:forget it

[RichardJenkins]

Two minutes ago I was thinking the exact same thing. Then I realised if a small business owner tells you that 15 years ago he set up a system at minimal cost and is only now looking at changing because the hardware is noticeably ageing, you'd have a hard time explaining to him that it's going to be *harder* to set up a system with similar longevity nowadays.

I wouldn't know how to even approach the subject without sounding like I'm just trying to extract more cash out of him.

Re:forget it

[Anonymous Coward]

My father is a veterinarian

He is cheap many doctors are.

I wrote software for doctors for a few years. They will drop 200k on a bad ass car. But the computer for the front room nurse? "Can we get it for 200 dollars less somehow?". "I found a B/W monitor for 20 dollars less" and so on...

They are running a business. If they can get ROI of years then they are doing pretty good.

I would tell him to buy *THE* cheapest computer they can (350-400 at this point in time). It will crush anything they are currently using. Hell it probably will ROI itself in the power bill alone in the first year. Then in 3-5 years when it goes tits up (and it will because it is a cheap computer) just migrate it.

You are advocating the guy spend thousands of dollars on something that he really doesnt need to do. He probably dropped 5k on those rigs back in 95. He probably can get 15 YEARS worth of computers if he replaces every 3-5. At the same 1995 dollars cost.

Your response is typical of IT (and other) professionals who presume to know users want, rather than listening to what they actually want
Your response is one who doesnt bother to dig into what they are really doing. Then showing what it would cost. *THAT* a business man will listen to. "I can do the same thing for 2000 less but there is a bit of a downside and some risk" will get his attention. Also his business is probably hurting in that floppy drives are long gone. The CD (if it has one) probably is on its last legs.

If he is DEAD set on lasting 15 years then I would say get an asus mini notebook. Plug in some cheap lcds and a 15 dollar keyboard. Probably total cost 500 bucks. Would probably last 15+ years.

15-20 years ago you thought about computers like that. It is not surprising he is still thinking like that. My dad is the same way. Until I laid out the math for him. He can buy a 2500+ computer to surf the web and hold a simple db and print some pages once and awhile. OR buy a cheapo one and upgrade (and keep your computer from becoming legacy junk no one wants to touch) ever few years and keep up and get the exact same effect.

There are other benefits to thinking this way. For example backup solutions. He is probably (if we are lucky) using some sort of tape drive. Older types of tapes are long gone and getting more expensive. But keeping up keeps your costs down.

Computers (least back in 95) were considered a 1 time expense. They are not. They are an ongoing expense. Treat them as such.

When it comes down to it newer computers are cheap junk. Unless you are really willing to pay for the support costs and buy 8k rigs, with long costly service contracts. You have pretty much no guarantee of lifetime. That he got 15 years out of those computers is commendable. But I would not plan my business that way. I would plan as if they are going tits up at any moment. If you treat them that way. Low cost is a better solution.

That he didnt keep up now he has other costs. Such as now he needs to be using VM type solutions or get some sort of conversion done to his data (and hopefully the new software does what his old does).

I would be a poor IT professional if I didnt show him the hidden costs that he has been accruing. There are tradeoffs. It is my job as a IT pro to SHOW management what they are.

short answer - you don't

[petes_PoV]

You cannot guarantee that lifetime, so the best response is to design a flexible solution. One that *could* last that period of tim if there are no hardware problems.

However, you should consider how to upgrade each part in isolation - or with small numbers of associated changes. That means using popular, but not bleeding-edge components. One's that (like with vintage cars) have a good number of enthusiasts using them. That means that spares will be available and the know-how to diagnose and fix problems will be available too.

The final fallback would be to buy two systems. Keep one in "deep freeze" until you need to cannabilse it for spares. However, don't expect the electrolytic capacitors to last that long.

Re:short answer - you don't

[MouseR]

Or just get quality components to begin with.

At the office, I'm still running a 350mghz PowerMac G4 computer (the bugger is 10 years old) as a server.

All original components. None failed. System still has it's original bleeding-edge 320megs of Ram, runs Mac OS X Tiger.

It was given a new 40gig baracuda drive that's been sitting on shelves for years. had never been used.

We use this machine as a slowest-denominator software test platform for a product in development and as a distributed networked compiler farm node and backup server for another more important machine (it backs up the backup machine's main OS, not it's files).

MS can argue all it wants about Apple making "aesthetic" machines, they actually use good components. Current XServe hardware being another case in point.

Re:short answer - you don't

[afabbro]

At the office, I'm still running a 350mghz PowerMac G4 computer (the bugger is 10 years old) as a server.

Hmmm, if that's mghz = MegaGigaHertz, then I'm quite awed. But if it's MicroGigaHertz, then I feel bad for you.

Re:short answer - you don't

[aschran]

Lowercase "m" means "milli," as in "milli-gigahertz." Which is the same as one megahertz. So actually, he is inadvertently correct. :)

Industrial PCs?

[Rorschach1]

How about industrial hardware? You'll probably pay at least twice as much as you would for a consumer desktop, but PCs made for industrial control applications tend to be a lot more rugged and build to serve for many years in harsh conditions. Sounds like you don't need a lot of processing power, so you could probably get by with a fanless system and eliminate a major failure (and noise) source.

I haven't bought anything from these guys, so I don't personally know anything about their quality, but SuperLogics has a barebones fanless Atom-based system for $315. Something like that might be a good start.

Most 15-year old Sun workstations are still useful

[blind biker]

Take an Ultra 1 or Ultra 2 - they are still rather useful computers, and the OS they run is rock solid by any standards. And there's a ton of software for them.

Now, I'm not suggesting that a 15 year old Sun Ultra 1 would be what your father is looking for, just that it is possible to have hardware that is both good quality and long lasting, and that it would run an OS and software that is still relevant nowadays. Sun did a great job at keeping Solaris backwards-compatible, both hardware-wise (supports older architectures) and software-wise (you can run a lot of vitnage software even on the newest Solaris).

Anyhow... an Ultra 1 is still a damn good computer.

You don't.

[SatanicPuppy]

15 years ago systems were night and day with the way they are now, and it's only going to get worse. After 10 years you won't be able to find anyone to work on the legacy stuff (unless you buy a proprietary unix system), and there is no guarantee for new parts.

The only way you've gotten away with it is that you have one application which has a very limited required environment, and drive interfaces have only changed once. If you stick with that philosophy, and get lucky with the drives again, you may be able to get by with something similar.

If you have to (which I don't recommend) then pick up a midrange quad core server with a ton of RAM and plenty of room for extra drives. Put a Linux distro on it: no hope of keeping up with Windows security for 15 years, and forget Mac, they're very prone to changing interfaces internally, and then discontinuing the old products.

Then use the server to push whatever app you need to some low duty desktops. You could use a web app, or a client/server desktop app. Again, you're probably good with a *nix.

Your biggest fear is drive space. In 15 years you won't be able to buy the drives you're using today, but there is no point in stockpiling them: they'll be dead in the box after 15 years. Solid state won't fail in the box (probably, but they're too new for it to have been tested) but you may have to replace them more often, depending on your utilization.

Just from personal experience, you're much better off buying a modest new system every 5 years, than a major new system every 15. It's cheaper, and the chance of a catastrophic failure are lower.

Veterinarian

[robably]

I wouldn't worry about the system having to last for 15 years if he's already a veterinarian. What is that, 140 years old? Wow.

Re:Veterinarian

[joeme1]

No, it means he only eats veterans. Duh.

Go server hardware

[Bigjeff5]

Get server hardware. It's the only stuff built these days with reliability as the #1 concern. And get GOOD server hardware. That doesn't mean dual quads with 64gb ram, that means a well known line in a company known for servers. I'd probably go HP or IBM, and for what your father needs you can pick the bare minimum and it will be fine for years.

Remember when you spec this out, that #1 failures are those with moving parts, as others have said already. This means, when you build your server, you want the LOWEST capacity and LOWEST speed you can get, for reliability. The high capacity, high speed drives fail the quickest because they push the hardest. SSD might be a good alternative, but as yet the long-term reliability is unproven and they have a definite limited life-span (i.e. # of writes, how quickly that is used depends on the application), instead of a constant potential failure rate. The plus on that is there should be very little chance of a SSD failing until it actually reaches its end of life.

So, slowest fans you can get, or no fans if possible, and slowest HDD. You should probably go with as low a power CPU as possible also, to keep from taxing the PSU.

Also note, VM would be a heck of a lot of work to get going, but new migrations and failure recovery should be simpler. Gotta pick what works for you.

Or at least

[Colin Smith]

forever

Until the virtualization software is made obsolete by the vendor.
 

Re:Or at least

[darthflo]

"the" virtualization software? Just be sure to keep the vm's disk an actual partition and you can swap your virtualization software in no time.
Alternatively, go the matryoshka way. Run Win95 in (for Example) VMWare 5 on current Ubuntu now, wrap that in Xen on Ubuntu 12.4 LTS, wrap that in the 2016 Edition of Virtualooz on vanilla Lunix 28.6.19 and that in some deep fried beer batter. Processor speed will keep up.

Re:Or at least

[similar_name]

Then he'll just have to virtualize the older virtualization software in the newer virtualization software.

Re:Or at least

[MasterOfDisaster]

Sup dawg, we heard you liked legacy applications so we put an emulator in your visualization so you can compute while u compute!

Your father might be in for a shock

[try_anything]

Your father might be in for a shock if he thinks he can keep running the same computer system for the next fifteen years. Almost all veterinary clinics have a web presence these days (if only contact info, a map, and some cute photos) so it's a cinch that in five years the bar will be raised to include real online functionality. Make an appointment, see when your dog is due for shots, see how much Poo-Poo weighed at his last checkup -- sounds nice, right? His current customers won't care if he falls behind, but without a steady stream of new customers, his practice will dwindle.

That means he needs to plan on new software. Software upgrades are much more painful and expensive than hardware upgrades, and new small business software has a way of running poorly on five-year-old machines. The next fifteen years will bring painful changes for his clinic's computer systems, much worse than simple hardware upgrades, and he is the one who will have to understand and deal with it. Of course, he might soon have the option of having his data and applications hosted elsewhere, so he might be able to keep the same hardware for the next fifteen years after all, but I don't think that scenario satisfies his current expectations.

Electrolytic capacitor problem

[prefec2]

The electrolytic capacitor on the main board are also a typical part to fail. The hotter the system the shorter there lifetime. So a cool motherboard and system is required.

If you love your father...

[Fortunato_NC]

...you will tell him to get a professional to do this for him. Whether he understands it or not, your father's livelihood depends on having computers that are up and running, and from the limited picture you've given us, it sounds like he only thinks about information technology when something is going wrong.

Simply replacing his current hardware with newer gear is just kicking the problem down the road. In the last 15 years, there have been significant advances that he should consider taking advantage of, because they can make his business run more efficiently. But the only way to determine the "right" solution is to have someone who understands your father's business design a solution for him. A good place to start would be with the vendor who sold him his current setup, if they are still in business. They can most likely recommend a suitable hardware platform and assist with data migration to a newer, supported version of their software, and provide some sort of service arrangement that will ensure that these systems are maintained, not just used.

If you're bound and determined to do this yourself, the recommendations about virtualization are good ones - you can build a couple of VM images that you can backup to a USB flash drive nightly, or even better, several flash drives - learn about backup rotation schemes and design one that gives you the ability to recover two weeks worth of image data at least.

Up thread, someone said that if you do this, you will be supporting it for the next 10-15 years. You need to keep that in mind when deciding how to proceed. Best of luck!

A few questions to answer before deciding...

[Dahamma]

My father is also a veterinarian with a private practice... I don't know enough about the exact details of his software but can give you the high level, as well as issues he has had, etc.

First, he has gone through a few (2 or 3 not sure) completely different systems (hardware and software) in the last ~20 years of having a "computerized" practice.

When they got the first system the practice was much smaller - 3 vets in the partnership and a handful of employees. Over time it has grown to employ another 3 full time vets and a much larger staff. So that's question 1: it may be small now, but do you expect it to grow? 2 networked workstations won't be enough if he may have 20+ employees in the future, and deciding on something today (hardware and software) that at least supports upgrades will go a long way to prevent having to redo the whole thing later.

Question 2 is related to the nature of his practice. Is it a relatively low-tech, rural practice or is he planning on modernizing/keeping up with technology? Back in the 70's the most high-tech equipment in most practices was the x-ray machine. Since then, my dad's practice has added an ultrasound, laparoscope, and most recently a digital x-ray that allows inexpensive, near instant access to results (without having to develop, etc) as well as convenient storage, display on a number of terminals in exam rooms, even convenient consults from remote specialists. That's in addition to all of the other benefits that come with professional veterinary software packages, like integration with outside labs to get faster test results, tracking of inventory and reordering, etc.

Question 3: how much does he care about his data/computer systems? If down is it a minor inconvenience or a crippling liability? If the latter, do you really want to build something for him with off the shelf parts with no support? Are you available for 24/7 support if something goes wrong? My dad's practice has 24/7 1 hour business support (from IBM? or something similar). If a system goes down, HDD dies, network is flaky, etc they will have someone there in less than an hour to replace hardware, diagnose issues, restore backups, etc. Sure, that service costs money but has been necessary several times over the past couple decades and saved their ass when it happened. On the other hand, if your father is basically using the machines for payroll, inventory, and bookkeeping, he might be ok with a simple backup system and your help when something goes wrong...

Anyway, I know my dad's practice now has a central server (I think just standard workstation HW with RAID and nightly backups?), a few terminals (I believe all Windows-based, since that's what the veterinary SW runs on), and most recently a medical grade monitor and high-res video card for x-ray display, along with a couple of WiFi laptops they use in exam rooms to show x-rays, look up histories, data entry, etc. All of it comes with 24/7 HW and SW support, which for their type of usage (and the fact they don't want or need a full time IT employee) I'd consider a must have...

Anyway, hope that helped. But to summarize I'd rank the goals as (not counting cost, which of course needs to be factored in depending on personal situation):

1) minimize downtime/lost revenue
2) allow modernization/support for new technologies as necessary
3) scalable if/when the practice grows in the future

What I would most definitely NOT worry about is the latest fancy hardware. If he's still surviving on a 486 with 8MB RAM, any reasonable modern HW will be cheap and more than enough. By all means go for reliability over performance, especially if you are doing it yourself. If buying HW/SW/support from a professional company, they will make sure the HW is adequate and reliable (since it costs THEM much more in the long run if it isn't).

No moving parts - or maybe VMWare

[goldcd]

Firstly - Running IT for your family is a pain. We all know you'll get nothing out of it apart from grief :) If you are feeling altruistic, then read on.
Secondly. Moving parts break. Heat breaks things. Fans sucking dog hairs into the system will break things. Assuming he's going to be using the same MS DOS app for the next decade or so, he does not need a powerful machine (which is handy). You just want some ultra-low power system (Atom? - how about one of those Asus desktop EEPC thingies - fit a cheap SSD if it doesn't come with one) - ideally just get something with a CPU and a PSU that doesn't need a fan, just a heatsink.
Thirdly it will fail. It's a PC for your Dad, it's critical to his business - therefore whatever you do will screw up. Install a backup solution. I'm assuming it's not creating vast amounts of data, so just something that'll spool the new data up the ADSL/cable/modem to a NAS/PC you can get your hands on somewhere out there.
Finally - you might want to consider VMWare. Performance hit isn't a problem in his case, and wouldn't it be nice if you could restore a complete failure/screwup in minutes (Oh and allow him to run a decent OS alongside the DOS app - as a bonus). Hardware's going to be cheap, so might as well buy a spare system. Anything does wrong - you just zap the image onto the new system and he's up and running whilst you try to work out whether the old PSU shorted, or the memory just came loose. If you feel very techy, could just setup the systems to mirror and implement a hot-standby (although possibly we're moving into the realms of overkill here).