Hardware ok or underpowered?

Question

I'd appreciate some advice regarding our current server hardware, running Windows Server 2019.
We had an online consultant help set it up a year ago, then had a local consultant come by recently for another issue, and he said what the first guy set us up with was totally wrong.
The hardware is a Dell PowerEdge T140 Tower Server, with a 4-core Xeon E-2124 CPU @ 3.3GHz, 16GB RAM, iDRAC, etc.
We run Win Server 2019, serving files to about 5 PCs actively, but with a total of 10 PCs logged in (most are just on factory machinery that don't access the server much at all). We also run 3CX VoIP phone system with 8 phones and two lines. Pretty small system all around.
We are not currently running VMs, but intend to do so, to separate the server, DHCP, 3CX, etc.
Our local consultant says that our hardware is "way underpowered and way overprovisioned". I'm disagreeing only because all that was running on a simple Windows 10 desktop PC a year ago, and working great. What we have now is working great. Resource monitor shows we rarely go over 25% for memory, less for CPU.
I suspect 16GB RAM might be low, but the box itself should be fine, in my opinion.
Can I ask for your opinions on this?
Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi @LenBH ,

The hardware should run your scenario just fine, with such little users 16GB of RAM should suffice, if the Resource Monitor also shows the RAM is around 25% of memory usage then there's absolutely no need for any additional RAM, only if the RAM jumps between 75 -100%, then you should consider adding more RAM.

If your users experience slowness, you could set up a Performance Monitor for a day or a few days and then check the results.

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(If the reply was helpful please don't forget to upvote or accept as answer, thank you)

Best regards,
Leon