Primafact Server and Workstation Requirements Explained

Why Primafact's infrastructure needs differ from a typical office application

Primafact stores and serves large volumes of scanned PDFs, images, and productions, which behave very differently from the small text files most office software handles. Every document open, search, and sync pulls real data across the network, so the server, storage, and network path all matter more than they would for email or a spreadsheet.

This is also why Primafact server requirements deserve a separate conversation from general office IT planning, and why a firm that outgrew its original server setup often experiences the slowdown described in Primafact's slow performance troubleshooting guide.

General capacity guidance by firm size

The figures below are general planning guidance, not a substitute for a proper assessment of your actual case load, document volume, and concurrent user count.

Why scanned document volume drives storage more than anything else

A single litigation matter with medical records, productions, and correspondence can easily run into gigabytes of scanned PDFs. Multiply that across dozens or hundreds of open and archived matters, and storage becomes the resource a firm runs out of long before CPU or RAM become a constraint.

Firms often underestimate this because the growth is gradual. Storage that felt spacious at setup can quietly fill over two or three years of active litigation practice, which is why periodic capacity reviews matter more for Primafact than for most office systems.

Network share considerations for multi-user access

Primafact depends on a reliable network share that every workstation can reach consistently. Wireless connections, older switches, and consumer-grade routers introduce latency and dropped connections that show up as slow document loads or failed saves, especially when several staff work in the same matter at once.

• Wired connections for desktop workstations wherever practical
• A business-grade switch and router rather than consumer equipment
• Enough network bandwidth to handle simultaneous document access during busy periods
• A network share structure that mirrors how your firm organizes matters

Workstation guidance

Workstations opening large scanned PDFs and running Primafact alongside PCLaw or Microsoft 365 benefit from adequate RAM and a solid-state drive rather than a spinning hard disk. A workstation that struggles to open a single large document is often simply underpowered for the current document volume, not experiencing a software fault.

Planning ahead: how to size for growth, not just today

1. Review current storage usage and growth rate over the past 12 to 24 months.
2. Estimate how many new matters and scanned pages per year the firm expects to add.
3. Build in headroom rather than sizing storage to exactly match current usage.
4. Schedule a capacity review at least annually as part of ongoing managed IT support.
5. Confirm backup infrastructure can scale alongside primary storage, not just the live server.

Frequently asked questions