GeoStac Data Server

GeoSTAC Tools: Hardware and Software Requirements

The GeoSTAC Toolset is additional software that runs inside ArcGIS. The ArcGIS package requires significant system resources for acceptable performance as described below. In addition, the GeoSTAC datasets will consume considerable disk space. This page lists minimal system and storage requirements and also contains some suggestions on specifications (for new machines or upgrading) that can offer improved system performance when running GeoSTAC.

System and GIS Software

  • Windows XP Professional with SP1 (SP2 has limitations for using ESRI products, please see ESRI website)
  • ESRI ArcGIS 9.1 Stand Alone with Service Pack 1
  • ESRI ArcGIS Spatial Analyst Extension

CLA recommends that potential purchasers of ESRI software review the latest minimum requirements currently specified by ESRI at this website. These should be sufficient for the basic functions of ArcGIS 9.1 with Spatial Analyst.

To run GeoSTAC, a minimum of approximately 70 MB of hard disk space will be needed to download and install the tools, along with about 7.5 GB of hard disk space to hold a minimum set of the geographical data. The full set of GeoSTAC datasets will occupy approximately 55 GB of either internal or external disk space.

For complex analyses, the GeoSTAC Tools can query millions of database records. On a minimally-configured system, performance is likely to be degraded for such operations, although our testing has indicated that the system will run. System upgrades in processor speed, RAM, hard disk access times and hard disk spin speeds can offer significant improvements in performance and are highly recommended.

Example Hardware Specifications

For efficient processing of complex GeoSTAC queries.

Desktop

  • 3.0+ GHz processor
  • 1 to 2 GB (or more) of RAM
  • Large (e.g. 180GB) Hard Drive

Notebook

  • 2.0+ GHz processor
  • 1 to 2 GB RAM
  • Large (e.g. 60GB+) Hard Drive (or see below for external drive recommendations)

Portable Hard Drive (optional, useful for working on notebook computer)

  • Useful for keeping the entire GeoSTAC dataset and for GeoSTAC output
  • Can be used as primary data source
  • Minimum 60GB
  • USB 2.0 (Firewire optional)
  • Portable drives pre-loaded with GeoSTAC data are available.

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