15 year supportability

[gmastra]

Hi all,

My company is looking to support a project that uses the 3 workstations Z230,Z420 and Z440 over the next 15 years.

One option is to purchase spares and if issues occur , replace them.  However I think given the 15 years support period, it may be better to consider replacing these with latest spec equipment that will still be available over a long term. Now I do not know if the software installed on these workstations is windows based, but it is most likely. As such these are not windows 11 certified, so that needs to be considered. Next is the storage medium, at present SATA hard magnetic disks and DDR memory are being used. Again over 15 years there is a very good probability that the parts used will become obsolete. Do people think that to "future proof" the equipment against obsolescence, one should consider solid state drives or even M2 drives ? The relative low cost of these components makes holding a reasonable stock of spares a valid option but  I do not have experience with workstations so would welcome suggestions on what to discuss for the support contract .

Regards Gmastra 

[DGroves · Accepted solution]

i recommend you talk to a qualified consultant on your needs as most people here are users just like you

archiving data to devices such as optical media or tape are 2 options to consider being able to run the archiving software or any software from today on newer hardware can also be done using software/hardware emulation on future systems such as vmware workstation that emulate generic hardware which can run current and older operating systems