I would suggest using a VPS on Amazon EC2 as a baseline to determine if you'll want or need to purchase any hardware. Here's a very quick and dirty run down: - Create a "medium 1 compute" Spot Instance Request ($0.05/hour). Windows Server 2012 describes this machine as a 2.4Ghz Xeon dual-core with 1.7GB of RAM. - Use a Windows Server 2008 or 2012 Base AMI. - Start Remote Desktop on your local machine and enable clipboard and file sharing so you can easily copy and paste and transfer your strategy code/other files back and forth. - Once you have retrieved the Windows Password, login as Administrator via Remote Desktop. Lately I have found an instance reboot is required if the "password not available" is still occurring after 15-30 minutes. - Install your software, connect to your backtesting data provider or import your historical data, import or copy your strategy. - Run a backtest and wait. - Copy results. - Terminate the VPS (all VPS content will be removed). There is some learning curve involved but those are the basics. You'll have to build the VPS everytime you boot unless you create a snapshot, etc. I'll admit I'm a little rusty with EC2 so you'll probably want to google for any questions. Lately I've been using it for quick and dirty optimization because of weak local hardware, but in the future I can see it being used regularly except when purchasing a dedicated machine makes economic sense. Obviously you can scale up the hardware as needed (and pay a higher per hour rate), but this "medium 1 compute" VPS is a good starting point. You could try the free "micro" tier for practicing but the lack of RAM is probably not practical for most Windows-based tasks. Good luck!