What are the Differences Between Desktops and Servers?

Business requirements of a real server introduce three key areas that differentiate server and client or desktop systems, namely, performance, dependability and room-to-grow.

Server performance is critical to the executing of business-critical applications and providing services to networked clients locally, or via Internet-based communications. The server’s ability to simultaneously complete multiple application processes in a multiprocessing environment and respond to high storage, memory and network data throughput is critical.

As your business continues to grow, your computing demands increase. A real server has the capacity to handle higher office workload demands and enhance your platform as your business needs expand. A real server generally has more capacity than a personal computer, enabling you to add more memory, hard disks, and peripherals as needed.

Scalability, a key component of room-to-grow, is the ability of a system or subsystems to increase in bandwidth and performance as new demands are placed on the system. Because a server performs multiple tasks and services multiple users, the demands on a server are greater and require more scalability than clients that are typically used by only one user at a time.

Desktop computers typically have limited I/O capability and limited room-to-grow capacity.