Thanks Elmer, that was helpful. Not a gamer or video editor so I guess I can forgo the ssd and video card upgrades. We do archive a lot of documents and photos so a large traditional drive would be welcomed. My primary uses are spreadsheets, financial, taxes, e-mail and web browsing.

Do you have a preferred Windows machine?

No. Don't dismiss the "cool" factor of having a solid state drive (SSD). Turn on the PC and it boots up and is ready to use immediately. They're even faster than my smartphone in starting. Programs load immediately. They're nice to have.

I've bought three PCs in the last year - the first was an All in One Lenovo to replace an All in One in our kitchen that died of old age. Loved the new machine so much, I bought a second identical one a few months later for my office to replace a sluggish desktop with a traditional hard drive. About 6 months ago, I bought a Dell laptop with a SSD. I choose Dell because it was a bit cheaper than a Lenovo equivalent and could be shipped to arrive sooner. All three, the two All in Ones and the laptop, have touch screens. Those are nice and it's surprising when that feature is useful.

I happen to like Lenovo as a brand but I'm not budget constrained. I'd say any major brand except HP is probably a reasonable choice. That's my personal preference. Costco is a good place to buy PCs but they tend to be expensive in that they offer overequipped PCs that most people don't need at good prices, where in the alternative, more suitably equipped PCs can be found for less.

Another issue is that SSDs don't have moving parts so they tend to be more reliable than conventional hard drives. Here is an article that provides some info: SSDs vs. hard drive

I don't know about any difference between the mean time to failure (the statistical elapsed time before a component dies) for mechanical versus solid state drives but the expected lifetimes of both types of devices are long enough that any difference between them can't hardly be relevant for for a casual home user. In over 30 years of having a PC at home, I've never had an onboard drive fail. External USB drives, yes for a few, but those get banged around.

Important data should always be backed up.

I agree on the need for always backing up your data on some other device or in the cloud. In my casual home computer use over the last couple of decades I’ve had two conventional hard drives fail. One of those failures was within two years of buying a new computer. i’ve always operated from. the view that it’s not a question of if your hard drive will fail, but when.

The plot of drive failure probability with probability on the Y axis and time on the horizontal is a steep, nearly vertical path when new, followed by a long and flat period of little to no likelihood for many years, followed by an upward path that resembles a slope. Call it "U" shaped but with a flat bottom and asymetrical. Meaning, if a drive doesn't fail when new or nearly so, absent damage, it's unlikely to fail until it approaches the statistically expected end of life.

All equipment and devices ultimately die but the question for a drive is whether the expected point in time when failure probability increases from "unlikely" is within or beyond the expected life of the PC it's part of. I think for most people, it's most often later, after the useful life of the PC has passed.

If you're not too constrained by budget, the HP business line is a good choice. Not necessarily the latest and flashiest features, but solid and dependable.