ONYX 11 Hardware Decision

[Bradbusman]

Smart people on Signs101:

We are looking to upgrade to Onyx 11 from and older version of Onyx. We have 2 UV, 3 Solvent and 2 Latex printers. We will be changing out the computers as well should we go to:

1. mac with bootcamp with windows OR used a regular computer with windows?

2. Any specs we should be looking at? Hard drive size, Ram etc etc? I dont have to have to change out computers for a very long time and overkill might be good here.

many thanks in advance for your valuable input

B

 

[MikePro]

I tried doing the bootcamp thing, but I find it much easier to have a dedicated PC running Onyx and controlled via Remote Desktop by my design Mac.

 

[Larry at Infinity]

What we have (PC) for Onyx 10

We have been on Onyx10 Production House, awaiting an 11 CD now (the download keeps getting corrupted). We had the corporate IT guy build us a "good RIP computer", and he came up with one that works really well for us so far:

3.3GHz i3-3220 CPU
12GB RAM
465GB HD
Win7Pro 64-bit.

I've had queue lists as long as my arm and never gone near maxing out the harddrive. RIP speed seemed really punchy at first, now a large (48" x 140") job seems to take a while, but you can plan around that. Plan around your budget, maybe getting a faster CPU and more RAM.

BTW, do you need to get Onyx Thrive to run that many printers or have you found a way of making Production House work for you? We run 2 printers and were told we would have to move up to Thrive if we added any more.

 

[JoeBoomer]

As much of a Mac 'fanboy' that I am; I would steer clear of dual-booting your mac. It will be a lot easier and faster if you just use a dedicated PC.


Here are a few basic things I would suggest:


• Intel i7 Processor
• 12+ GB RAM (Make sure you buy a computer that has a motherboard that is expandable to 16GB+ of RAM)
• 2+ hard drives (Ideally both SSD's)
- Make sure you get an SSD as your main drive. (Run your OS and software). Then use the other SSD or HDD(s) for storage, etc.
• Windows 7 professional (Windows 8 sucks)
If you do nothing else, get an SSD! It is by far the biggest hardware upgrade you can make to any computer.


Also, depending on how you connect all of your printers, adding an additional ethernet port might be a good idea.

FYI - I typically purchase computers with the minimum amount of RAM & HDD space included. Then purchase upgrades from www.crucial.com. Just make sure the computer your buying has the ability to be upgraded to 16+GB ram.

Go Team!

 

[peavey123]

CHeck out ONYX's website. They have system requirement spec's.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

• 2+ hard drives (Ideally both SSD's)
- Make sure you get an SSD as your main drive. (Run your OS and software). Then use the other SSD or HDD(s) for storage, etc.

I would actually use a mechanical drive as a storage drive and use the SSD as your OS and software drive. Mechanical drives when they fail, you have a chance of recovering your files without having to resort to a backup. (especially if there is a delay between the last backup) SSDs (at this time) provide no such luxury.

• Windows 7 professional (Windows 8 sucks)

For a tablet, I actually like Win 8. I use it on my Cintiq tablet and I like it a lot. Even more so then 7 and I am a Win 7 "fan boy". Now if this is a desktop, I would stick with Win 7.

 

[danno]

I'm running Onyx 10.something looking to upgrade to the new 11 or something else. Here's my PC specs. We don't really slow down to much. Dual Xeon 2.4 24 gb ram 256 gd ssd os drive 500 gb 10000 rpm dedicated onyx drive 1.5 tb 7200 rpm storage drives x2. We have an LX800, L26500, HP9000s x2 and a Canon ipf9000. Adding a HP FB700 next month. Need to open the case and see if I can add another storage drive. I can only hold about 6 months of jobs at this point.

 

[Bly]

On this note (and I don't mean be a thread pirate) but is the main advantage of Thrive that is uses PDF print engine vs Jaws? I'm not sure I even completely understand what that means but from what I'm told Thrive will handle PDF's with transparencies/gradients etc much better than a RIP with jaws.

We're using Production House 10.2.5 and have had very few issues with Illustrator/PDF transparencies.