Guideline on Computer Recommendations

For Running HDS Software

Which Hardware do you Recommend?

We cannot recommend a single optimal hardware configuration. It depends on your typical work.
Optimization can be done for many factors like cost, processing time or storage capacity. This is an
individual matter.

Also, we cannot recommend specific hardware because we have no means to verify that it really works.
Please refer to the respective product datasheets for the official recommendations. Consult your local
system service for your hard- and software (operating system) configuration.

What are Typical Project Sizes That Require Other Hardware Settings?
Users in practice have project sizes like

 small: around 50 stations

 medium: around 200 stations
 large: 500+ stations

Particularly users with bigger projects will benefit from a hardware setting that is scaled to the need of
larger projects.

What CPU Should I Purchase?

In general, buy a CPU that has fast single cores. The possibilities of parallelization are limited and it may
in many cases be worthier to have fast single cores than many relatively slow cores. For functions with
a high parallelization rate, 8 cores are regularly well used.

Exotic server CPUs as for example some Xeon CPUs with 20+ cores may in most cases only be used to a
low percentage. They are designed to run multiple tasks in parallel. A single software does not
necessarily benefit from these very expensive CPUs.

small medium large

Even for small projects, a Choose a fast CPU. You will Choose the fastest CPU within
higher medium-class CPU greatly benefit in your daily your budget. If you are
makes sense. You will be able work from 8 fast cores. processing big data and want
to process your data also with to run multiple processes
slow CPUs but you will greatly parallelly you may benefit from
benefit from a faster CPU in an 8+ core CPU. (Running
your everyday work multiple software at the same
time.)

Leica Geosystems HDS Support (EMEA)

www.leica-geosystems.com
Your local system service can advise you which CPU fits your system and which up-to-date CPU fits the
performance requirements.

How Much RAM do I Need?

Both hardware and software need to be able to manage large amounts of RAM. Consult your local
system service which hardware components you need (e.g. mainboard) and which operating system is
able to manage your desired amount of RAM. Also, they should advise which type of RAM is proper for
your system.

small medium large

Even for smaller projects, you Have at least 64 GB RAM. You Take at least 128 GB RAM.
will benefit from 64 GB RAM. will greatly benefit from 128 Some tasks will benefit from
High-resolution data with high- GB RAM 256 GB RAM. Especially data
resolution images may not import.
import on machines with only If time is a factor and you plan
32 GB RAM. If you do not to run software parallelly you
import images you may be will benefit from more RAM.
able to work with 32 GB RAM
64 GB 64-128 GB 128 GB+ (better 256GB)

Which Hard Disk Should I Buy?

There are different strategies to store data. They depend on personal taste, local possibilities, and
application needs.

In general, there are

 slow drives like regular hard disks. Normally one can buy a lot of space for little money. They
are a slow but economic solution.
 medium-fast drives like regular SSDs. They often achieve data rates up to 500 MB/s. They are a
good choice also for data-intensive applications.
 very fast drives like SSDs that can process data with 3000+ MB/s. They are by far the fastest
drives but also very expensive. They can access data not only very fast sequentially but also
access many small files in a very short time.
 any type of network storage. This can be
o NAS
o SAN: some customers have a SAN. If the hardware is good, it is fast and reliable storage.
They may appear to Windows as local drives and thus overcome network drive issues.
Consult your local IT service.
o DAS
o any shared drive
 or other solutions like
o external USB drives
o tape drives

Consult your local system service which is the appropriate storage solution for you. Please consider the
importance of speed and the stability of the connection for Leica HDS software.

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It is impossible to say how much space a customer needs. It depends on the amount of data that is
processed. The customer needs to make a guess how much data he needs to process concurrently and
how much he needs to store for later access. He needs to scale his storage space to his needs. He may
start with less space and purchase additional drives if necessary. Internal drives are by far the best
solution.

A fundamental data organization principle for all software is to spread different data sources to
different drives to increase the data access rates. SSDs, in general, are so fast that the effect of
distributed data may not be much noticeable anymore. We do not have any knowledge what can be
increased by how much if data is spread over multiple drives of a certain type. But we can say that the
use of SSDs will dramatically speed up all data operations. Theoretically, the highest access rates can be
achieved if drives are connected to different buses. Depending on the drive and bus speed this may
have no practical effect.

We can separate data in roughly 4 categories.

 raw data
 databases
 temp files
 applications (software, Windows…)

Since temp files are always written and read and may be larger than the database itself it is a good
strategy to have the temp files on the fastest drives. But also the operating system and applications
benefit in general from being stored on fast drives. It is a matter of practical experience for specific use
cases what the best distribution of the above-mentioned data types is. We can give only general
statements of meaningful strategies. They may not be the best for a specific use case.

It is an economic decision to purchase multiple drives. Very large SSDs are normally expensive. Do not
waste money by buying one very fast and very big drive. Make an economic decision to get the fastest
drives with the most space within your budget. This is probably achieved by buying multiple drives. You
will have a technical benefit from that economic decision.

small medium large

Having small projects and low You will need at least 1 TB of Take the combination of drives
budget one will be able to fast temp space. Do not make that gives you the most space
process data on a single slow databases too large. Certain and the fastest access rates,
drive. It will be slow in every function like “Unify” in Cyclone that you can get within your
case. Consider at least one 2nd need a lot of temp space. budget.
slow drive to store e.g. temp You will greatly benefit from 2
files on it. You will benefit from SSDs.
that. Have a very large internal
storage. It must not be fast but
large and internal.

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What Does That Mean for my Data Organisation?
 Never have databases on external storage locations.
 The use of network locations is often not possible or not recommended.
 Have your temp files on your fastest drives.
 Also, it is in general good to have the database - that is for example completely written to
during import - on an at least fast drive.
 USB connections are relatively weak connections in terms of speed and reliability. The
connectors are plugged in and out often. Small physical impacts can interrupt the connection to
a USB device. This may be vibrations because something heavy falls on the floor. Multiple
devices on the same hub (e.g. mouse and HDD) may lead to communication problems with the
devices.
 However, depending on your time and your money, you may consider storing raw data on an
external drive and import from a relatively fast, but in absolute terms still slow, external
storage like a USB3 disk (or directly from a data stick). They are relatively fast in accessing
sequential data and the amount of time saved by reading it from a very fast internal drive may
be smaller than the time of copying.
Keep in mind that import is a long process and it may fail if the USB connection is interrupted at
any point for any reason.
 Consider copying your raw data before import on an at least slow internal drive. It is read only
once but still, the slow internal drives are not so slow that the import happens really very slow.
At least the data access will be stable.
 Consider copying your raw data to a fast internal drive, import from there and then later copy
the raw data away in the background if this is necessary.
 You need to scale the hardware to your workflow.
An example: The ratio between RTC360 raw data (3.1mm scan resolution, images with
compression) to the imported Register 360 database is approximately 2:3. That means the
database will be approximately 1.5 times larger than the raw data. The Cyclone .imp database
will even be a little bit larger.

Which Network Requirements do I Have?

Besides the limitations which databases can be stored on network locations, it is normally slow to
access data over the network. Also, raw data import is known to be slow over the network or may
simply fail in different ways. If you plan to distribute files via the network have at least a 1 GB/s
network connection. You will benefit from a 10 GB/s network.

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What Graphics Card Should I Buy?
The graphics card will be used for calculations and import and of course for displaying point cloud
data. The graphics card should be chosen depending on:

 processor class: it makes no sense to buy a low-end CPU and a high-end graphics card
 monitor resolution: (multiple) 4K monitors need higher speed and more RAM at the card

The graphics requirements do not fit to the scheme of project size but considering the fact that with
increasing general computer power it makes more sense to take a better graphics card, the below
scheme may still find practical application. But even for very large projects, you will not need the
highest-end graphics card on the market. It can cause more trouble than benefit. Besides the economic
impacts, there are technical reasons like the degree of capacity utilization.

This quote of an IT professional puts it in a nutshell: “Extra RAM doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t necessarily
help either!”

small medium large

medium gaming card high-end gaming card or Depending on graphics
medium CAD card requirements (3rd party
applications, screens,
resolution)
2 GB RAM 4 GB RAM 8 GB RAM

Can you Summarize This in Short Practical Recommendations?

Clarify with your local IT service company what a proper hardware configuration is for your needs. The
table gives you an idea which hardware is needed to work well with your projects of an approximate
size.

small (50 setups) medium (200 setups) large (500+ setups)

CPU Intel i7-style, at least Intel i9-style, 8-core local IT service should
quad-core choose one according to
the software
requirements and
customer needs.
RAM 64 GB 64 - 128 GB 256 GB
Disks One SSD. One hard Two SSDs. At least one Fast to very fast SSDs.
disk. big internal hard disk. Enough fast and big
internal disks to store
data.
Graphics Medium gaming card, High-end gaming card Depending on graphics
card 2 GB RAM or requirements (screens /
medium CAD card, resolution), 8 GB RAM
4 GB RAM

We recommend in general to purchase quality hardware for a reliable working environment.

Leica Geosystems HDS Support

(August 2019)

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