john_harper9

Miner's cemetery. Zortman MT

+1 on transparency of how the site is structured, operated, and funded. During the massive upgrade a few years ago that lost my portfolios and subjected us to months of dismal performance, I declined to renew my paid membership. Having an understanding of the site's infrastructure and challenges to keep it operational would encourage me to support w/paid membership - to keep Photo.net available and vibrant.

My perspective on building Windows systems from components ... don't. Been there, done that. I used to build business systems (servers, workstations), but a couple of decades ago, Dell, HP, et al, became competitive with price. The aggravation of replacing a failed component wasn't worth it when I could outsource that problem to the manufacturer. Careful shopping can get you a high-end workstation for a good price and if there are any issues, the manufacturer will fix it under warranty. My current workstation is a small form factor workstation ordered with a fast CPU, ports I needed on the motherboard, and minimal storage. I replaced the small NvME boot drive with 2T NvME drives and added memory. Haven't seen a need to upgrade the graphics yet. Works well for Adobe software. (BTW, I experienced a component failure which was replaced on-site the next day by the manufacturer).