How much Drive Space do I need?

I get asked this question quite a bit when a customer is going to upgrade hardware or software.  Although this can be an important question, it is a hard one to answer when upgrading software from say CounterPoint V7 to CPSQL, and even more difficult from migrating from a completely different application.  We can give you an estimate based on the OS requirements, the new application-ware, and work files.   It will only be an educated guess.

With the price of hard drive space at a minimum now a days, this question in my opinion is probably one of the least important.  1 TB (That's 1 million Gigabytes or about 300,000 pictures) drives are very inexpensive these days (can be < $100).  For comparison reasons, a CCS customer with 20 different locations, runing CPSQL 8.3.9 for about 4 years has a database size of about 300GB.  This includes all the history from all 20 stores, all items, users etc. If my math is correct, they could  probably run on that same hard drive for another 4 to 8 years and still have some room left over.  Thats alot of data!!

When preparing to upgrade from one version of CounterPoint to another, or from a completely different application, I feel your processing power and amount of ram (memory) is where the concern should be.  My answers is not an exact number, when it comes to either of these resources.  My answer is usually "The more, the better".  The more processing power and ram you have in your system, the better performance you will get out of your applications, all of them. 

It is also very important to consider the Disk Drive resource on your servers.   Check the specifications on the drive before you purchase it or deploy it.   Drives have different rotational speeds and on-boad cache.   It is advisable to get a drive with a rotational speed of at least 7,200rpm, and a cache size of 64MB.   This usually means the drive will be at least 1TB to acheive this.  Manufacturers see these specifications as necessary for larger rather than smaller drives.

If you are working with CCS Retail Systems on upgrading your hardware, we always make sure that you have enough "power" and  "space" to allow your application to run smoothly, and provide for company growth.

If you are upgrading on your own, it certainly doesn't hurt to go over the specs of your current system to make sure your application will run smoothly.  This true of a new system you planing on purchasing as well.  When it comes to hard drive space, get as big as you can, so you do not havve to worry in a couple of years that your hard drive is going to fill up.

If you have any system questions or concerns, contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 800-672-4806 or email us.

-Bryan