PowerDB Technical Requirements

What hardware or software is needed by users to run PowerDB?

PowerDB is an application installed on individual Windows PCs or laptops (Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10).  A minimal machine configuration will have a 2 GHz processor, 2 GB RAM and 2 GB hard drive space.  No other software applications are required to operate PowerDB.  A PDF distiller is recommended (PrimoPDF or PDF995).

Describe PowerDB’s scalability.

Microsoft Access is typically used for field databases.  In PowerDB version 10 (and later), SQL Server Express can be used in lieu of Access to enable PowerDB Field databases greater than 2GB in size.  The PowerDB Master database can be either Access or SQL Server, though SQL Server is recommended for reliability and scalability.

What are the requirements for running on a Windows Server?

The software must be installed on each machine that runs PowerDB.  There are no special requirements for installing on a server that will run the software.  Our customers are using a variety of Microsoft operating systems as a server, from Windows Vista to WinServer 2008 64 bit. Administrative privileges are only necessary to install the software.  Disk space, processors, and memory requirements are minimal.  Reserving 20GB of disk space for a SQL Server master database will likely provide plenty of room for a decade or more of data collection.  This is dependent upon how many sets of data you collect (estimate is based on 8000 per year) and what type of data (estimate is based on typical numeric and text data collected by our customers, not on image data).

What versions of SQL Server does PowerDB support?

MS SQL Server 2005, 2008 R2, and 2012.  Consult the recommended system requirements for SQL Server provided by Microsoft.  The requirements for SQL Server 2012 can be found here.  For SQL Server 2005, 2008 or 2008 R2 requirements, click the “Other Versions” dropdown at the top of that page.