FAO Server Guys/Geeks..

[Rob]

Hi.

I've been asked to look into setting up a server for my work. We're only a small-ish construction company, we basically just want somewhere central to store our drawings.

We want to be able to access them, edit, and resave them. That's about it really.

From what I've read it's really not that complicated, I'm pretty damn computer savi, and have a degree in design for interaction etc (so don't struggle with coding etc).

I'm only really asking here because it's just something I've never had to deal with before, so any advice from people who have done this before certainly isn't a bad thing.

The server will be located in our office,with a decent BB conection, I assume there's nothing special needed? Basically just a computer, apache, and a firewall??

The bits I know nothing about is limiting access etc?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Revels]

Cookie is close to you. He'll come round and set it up for a packet of jammie dodgers.

 

[Adam.]

How many users?

Do you need access externally?

 

[Nickson]

Would a NAS drive not suffice?

Requirements seem pretty simple.

Is a simple solution admittedly, but would work from what you have asked for!

 

[Rob]

External access would be the main point of the thing!

We work in onsite offices all the time, I've never even been to our main office (Hereford).

It'd need about 8 users external access, but that's on the VERY unlikely event that everyone was accessing at the same time.



Dan - Didn't realise cookie did that sort of stuff, it's a bit of a mission to our server location, so maybe I'll just ask for advice and have a go... lol!

 

[Rob]

Would a NAS drive not suffice?

Requirements seem pretty simple.

Is a simple solution admittedly, but would work from what you have asked for!

Does this allow access through the net though?

Once I've set this thing up, I'll probably never be in the same building as it again!

 

[Adam.]

Probably a basic server running SBS would suit you fine by the sounds of things.

The real bottle neck will be the broadband connections.

Problem with that NAS would be restricting access IIRC.

 

[Rob]

Nothing we do is majorly restrictive in terms on bandwidth, none of our drawings ever go over 5mb really.

Ontop of that we're working on mobile BB on site so things will be slow anyway.

To give you an idea of typical usage...

Come into office, pull a drawing off the server, work on it for 3 hours, save it back to server.

SBS Adam? I'm rather new to this side of things...

 

[welshname]

Dualcore SBS server, nothing special.

need a second pack of CAL's (rip off i know or you can just disable SBCORE service in registry and then disable license logging from services.msc)

during sbs setup you can set up a remote network (domain name obviously required) but i'd reccomend buying a router with a VPN built in we use a draytek. limiting access to files by using permissions on the folders, and mapping individual drives to each persons machine. will work much faster than a remote web workplace type setup.

 

[welshname]

SBS is windows Small Business Server

 

[@Spoonie]

There are many cloud based storage solutions available now. If everyone has an internet connection then you could look at that to save hardware costs and the need to make the server available to remote users. Seems a little overkill to go the SBS route if you are only looking to share data.

 

[cava83]

lol if all you need is that, forget servers, maintenance and so on, all costs money and your time, plus if it doesn't work, you will be shot.

Nice simple solution would be to use dropbox because then you can manage the user rights.

 

[Longy]

lol if all you need is that, forget servers, maintenance and so on, all costs money and your time, plus if it doesn't work, you will be shot.

Nice simple solution would be to use dropbox because then you can manage the user rights.

This to be honest or if you want something with a bit more bells and whistles then look at hosted Sharepoint solution for document management and serving remote clients and even giving external customers access to certain design areas etc.

Partner that with a hosted exchange solution for your emails, calendar sharing, sharepoint intergration. You'll have s solid solution maintenance free from your end for a fixed monthly fee.

It will just work! from anywhere with a internet connection.

 

[Rob]

Interesting, anyone help me out with regards to very rough costings on the hardware side of things?

If possible I'd love to just do it myself.

Literally all this server will be is somewhere to keep our drawing files (and a few word docs etc). Then, whilst on site, I want to be able to work on them, and re-save to the server.

lol if all you need is that, forget servers, maintenance and so on, all costs money and your time, plus if it doesn't work, you will be shot.

Nice simple solution would be to use dropbox because then you can manage the user rights.

I was thinking something like this... interesting.

We've had quotes for all kinds of crap, I'm a bit lost with it all now, I need to sit and figure s**t out. lol

 

[Longy]

How many total users (internal and external)?

How is your current email done?

Size of data? expected size of data in 3 years?

Budget?

 

[Rob]

Right:

Total users: 5 External, 5 Internal.

Current email is done through our web host, just POP accounts that are brought into outlook. (Email suits us totally fine).

Size of data - At current, somewhere in the region of 5GB, in 3 years, around 100GB maybe.

Budget - Lowest cost solution would be desirable, we're effectively just starting out (created a new company from old company members).

 

[Longy]

Dell Poweredge T110II £769
RAID1 500GB
Windows Server 2008R2 Foundation (MAX15 users)
i3 Core 2 GB Ram

2 x External Backup 2.5" 320GB backup drives Rotational £90

plus a network switch and router.

Cheap easy done.

SBS2011 is far more expensive plus much higher hardware requirements and it will offer you great features that you don't want/need. However this solution does the job for you but it might be worth looking at features you could be missing out on which may help productivity.

 

[Rob]

Cheers for that mate, how does this sounds as an option:

(Something from a quote my boss has already received)

The way I would like to work this is to buy a NAS (Network Attached Storage) which you will save to (it will become your M:\ drive) We would then do a backup to another part of the same NAS every night and at the weekend we would back up to a tape which would then be taken home on Monday morning. The NAS would give FTP access to the share which I would configure so that the London office could directly connect to it.

 

[Adam.]

Taking a backup tape home on a monday morning.....:dapprove:

 

[Longy]

Cheers for that mate, how does this sounds as an option:

(Something from a quote my boss has already received)

So the backup of the NAS is to the NAS? not good (except once a week)!

You'll have the NAS price plus a Tape device price? Plus tapes and insecure FTP access.

for less than the price of a decent computer get a proper setup in if you ask me including shadow copies. If you don't fancy the backup option you could use cloud based backup solution.

 

[Rob]

God, I'm going to need to do a lot of reading to get my head around this aren't I? lol!

Almost everyone is seeming to advise these tape copies? Why are you both against them?

As for the backup of the NAS on the NAS, I'm guessing that's incase there's random corruption and the backup would be on a different partition?


I think I'll be getting someone else to do the install now, but I want to know what's really my best option.

 

[Longy]

What price have they quoted for the NAS setup including the install time?

My solution gives you a good solid server with Mirrored HDD's, licensed upto 15users, secure VPN access and a fast reliable backup solution for less than £900! Windows 2008R2 offers some great features including rolling back files and folders to previous versions. Which your NAS cant do.

Plus all the above is so easy to manage yourself.

 

[Revels]

I still think dropbox is the best solution so far.

 

[Sym0n]

Dropbox has been getting a lot of bad press lately surrounding it's security. Something to bear in mind.

 

[Rob]

What price have they quoted for the NAS setup including the install time?

My solution gives you a good solid server with Mirrored HDD's, licensed upto 15users, secure VPN access and a fast reliable backup solution for less than £900! Windows 2008R2 offers some great features including rolling back files and folders to previous versions. Which your NAS cant do.

Plus all the above is so easy to manage yourself.

I like you. I like the sound of all of the above.

There's no quote for the above in terms of time, just in terms of equipment, and it's more than what you've said I could do all that for.

One question, what can I do with regards to having some sort of external backup?? I've just found out that our "office" is above some warehouse where some dude has a load of flammable s**t.. FLOL!

I still think dropbox is the best solution so far.

Really?

I do, to some extent, agree, BUT... (and I'm not joking here), everyone I work with is OLD, and a) trying to explain that something so simple will work, would be a nightmare and b) it doesn't have some server features...

 

[cava83]

Right:

Total users: 5 External, 5 Internal.

Current email is done through our web host, just POP accounts that are brought into outlook. (Email suits us totally fine).

Size of data - At current, somewhere in the region of 5GB, in 3 years, around 100GB maybe.

Budget - Lowest cost solution would be desirable, we're effectively just starting out (created a new company from old company members).

Horrible, change to at least imap please

 

[Rob]

They might be imap, tbh they're just through cPanel and into outlook, nothing kept on server, done.

I'm not massive on the "office side" of technical jargon. Mainly because I haven't worked in an office for that long, LOL.

 

[cava83]

I like you. I like the sound of all of the above.

There's no quote for the above in terms of time, just in terms of equipment, and it's more than what you've said I could do all that for.

One question, what can I do with regards to having some sort of external backup?? I've just found out that our "office" is above some warehouse where some dude has a load of flammable s**t.. FLOL!



Really?

I do, to some extent, agree, BUT... (and I'm not joking here), everyone I work with is OLD, and a) trying to explain that something so simple will work, would be a nightmare and b) it doesn't have some server features...

Longy provides a good suggestion, so defo worth taking note.

Secondly, drop box is easy. Older people will just think it's an extra folder, that's it.

Anyhow, what ever you choose, just do some research.

Dropbox or similar, is by far the easiest. If I was starting a business, or had a business less than 15 users I would look at office365 / BPOS offering, why? Saves you fannying around internally and you just get on with the job. However, I also like tinkering and messing around with stuff.

 

[Adam.]

Only problem I can see with dropbox is that if you're on site, and someone else opens the file to work on it then you're going to have 2 files. Cause with dropbox you can still get stuff while you're offline.

 

[Millsy]

Would a NAS drive not suffice?

Requirements seem pretty simple.

Is a simple solution admittedly, but would work from what you have asked for!

I work for a small architectural practice and we use a NAS, got rid of our server as we just weren't utilising its features, took our exchange online with microsoft 3 months ago and its been faultless.

The NAS is accessible from outside the network too.

We have user right management on the NAS.

We have 5 staff and we also backup to two different portable 250GB HDD's every night and also it backs up to a folder on the NAS purely if someone deletes something, someone gave me the chance to test it out the other day and it works flawlessly, literally copied and pasted the folder.

No more f**king about with veritas/symantec backup exec etc.

all in including our data migration and setting up our exchange etc was about 1.5k, if you're doing it for the first time you could easily halve that.

 

[Longy]

I work for a small architectural practice and we use a NAS, got rid of our server as we just weren't utilising its features, took our exchange online with microsoft 3 months ago and its been faultless.

The NAS is accessible from outside the network too.

We have user right management on the NAS.

We have 5 staff and we also backup to two different portable 250GB HDD's every night and also it backs up to a folder on the NAS purely if someone deletes something, someone gave me the chance to test it out the other day and it works flawlessly, literally copied and pasted the folder.

No more f**king about with veritas/symantec backup exec etc.

With Windows Shadow Copies you don't even need the backup disk to restore a file or folder - it's native to the OS , just right click the folder and click previous versions.

 

[Millsy]

With Windows Shadow Copies you don't even need the backup disk to restore a file or folder - it's native to the OS , just right click the folder and click previous versions.

Yeah I get that but we didn't use shadow copies when we had our server.

 

[Millsy]

.

 

[Cup_Phil]

NAS Drive FTW

Get one with Raid and 2 x 1TB hard drives - that way you don't have to worry about network access
They share over the internet just by plugging them into your router

Job done - cost about £200

 

[sbridgey]

I still think dropbox is the best solution so far.

Yes, mee too, cheap/free and simple to setup

Only problem I can see with dropbox is that if you're on site, and someone else opens the file to work on it then you're going to have 2 files. Cause with dropbox you can still get stuff while you're offline.

If that was to become a problem you could use Windows Live Skydrive or Google docs, you can just download the file edit it then upload it or if it is a word document it can be edited on the web without downloading. This is another Free simple solution to possibly try before you start spending money on more expensive server based solutions that may not even work correctly.

 

[cava83]

Yes, mee too, cheap/free and simple to setup



If that was to become a problem you could use Windows Live Skydrive or Google docs, you can just download the file edit it then upload it or if it is a word document it can be edited on the web without downloading. This is another Free simple solution to possibly try before you start spending money on more expensive server based solutions that may not even work correctly.

+1

 

[dk]

Lol, some funny suggestions in here.

Basically, try dropbox, cheap as chips, will suite you fine to start with, no need to worry about backups then either.

If not, then one of the iomega nas boxes with cloud functionality, does everything you want again. Can get a 2TB (1TB usable with RAID1) one online for about £250.

You do not need a windows or sbs server IMO, bit ott, licensing requirements etc. You already have cloud based email, so do the same with your files, for 5-10 users, take advantage of the cloud based services (even though I hate using the term cloud as it's waaay overused and is just a buzzword everyone likes a band about! )

 

[ChrisR]

(even though I hate using the term cloud as it's waaay overused and is just a buzzword everyone likes a band about! )

Thank you, someone else who thinks that! Thought I was alone on the matter

 

[Cookie]

LOL at offering me out

Thanks Revs

 

[iain187]

For me it looks like this: if you buy a server, eventually it will go wrong and your company will probably look at you to fix it. If it's something complicated you probably won't want this extra duty.
In this scenario I guess the normal thing would be to find an IT company who will support you when you need it

So if you are going to pay a monthly cost anyway, you might as well not bother buying a server and pay for the 'cloud' solution.

then you don't have to worry about anything and it will 'just work'