I am looking into getting a new computer and I had a couple questions in regards to installing and running QIIME2. Is the limiting factor for running QIIME2 the CPU or the memory? Also, is there a Windows compatible version available?
Thanks in advance!
Good afternoon @mikaylacraven,
Welcome to the forums! I hope you enjoy using Qiime 2 
Different steps require different amounts of both resources. In general, CPU will make some steps faster, but if you don't have enough RAM, other steps simply can't run. So I would prioritize RAM then get the faster CPU you can afford.
One option is to get a medium size computer (say 16 GB of RAM), then rent a super-computer from Amazon or Digital Ocean when you need a lot more processing power.
No. Qiime 2 makes use of unix software, but... you can run Qiime 2 on Windows using a VM or using Windows Subsystem for Linux! This method works great:
https://docs.qiime2.org/2019.7/install/virtual/virtualbox/
Let us know if you have any questions!
Colin
My experience has been RAM (>16gigs) has been a bottleneck, get a computer with a decent SSD, and an average processor would be ok.
I think though, when you start moving large amounts of data, it would benefit you in the long run to learn how to run shell scripts on a HPC. (Or have access to a HPC)
Teaching windows users QIIME2 for me has been a significant issue - I have been trying to steer some to Unix (Ubuntu) or if it isn’t cost prohibitive an older (1-2 year older) computer running MACOSX. Ben