Advantages of SBS in my situation

Minimoke

Minimoke

Minimoke

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Joined
27 Feb 2009
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317
Hey all,
I've had a server at my office for some time now, it's running a socket 939 AMD chip at 2.0GHz, 2GB DDR RAM, nothing huge. At first I just threw XP on it and used it for file sharing, Filezilla for FTP'ing, the usual. Now it will be used a lot more heavily as me and some friends have started working on a media project, using the server as the central location for everything. The network consists of 4 or 5 computers.

I recently was given a copy of SBS 2003, so I installed it on the server. Although I am experienced with computers in general, i.e. networking, fixing upgrading etc, I've never really worked with Business OS's.

What I'd like to know is, are there any huge advantages of SBS over XP in my situation? I've no real need for not having the accounts stored locally if you know what I mean, as we all have our own machines, and none of the files are secret or exclusive to any of us so security on that side isn't really needed. Anything I'm missing?

Sorry for the length, I appreciate any help that you clever cloggs can give me :)

Chris.
 
It really depends on the needs of your business do you need things like Exchange for emails or sharepoint?

The only advantage of server 2003 over Xp is it has been designed to be on all the time rather than a desktop operating system
 
No advantage at all, it will jsut waste your time installing it and supporting it...

stick with XP unless you have a burning need for exachange or SQL (if its the version with SQL)
 
sharepoint will give you rollback history on office documents but it's not without administrative overhead.

shadow copies will do the same, not quite as well but almost zero overhead in terms of having to set it up, manage perms, dba work on the content database, etc.

exchange, shared calendar, outlook web access etc is always worth it.

integrated backup is great for the lesser experienced admin.

xp is obviously zero hassle though...
 
if you're using pcs in the office and you want to work remotely then the remote web workplace is quite a nice feature. you've mentioned that centralised administration isn't really going to benefit you, so other than that - unless you really need a half decent collaboration environment (email, calendaring, intranet) it's really just going be to providing a file server for you. if that turns out to be the case then on that hardware i would probably just stick with what you know - in my case i would probably just swap it out for [insert your favourite linux distro here]. if the email is an attractive proposition then you could probably get a basic hosted exchange setup for hardly any cash at all - then you haven't got to worry about managing it.
 
Interesting reading the responses - ive always got a bashing for using XP as a server OS and yet no one in here has convincingly said why one would be better and many have said dont bother stick with XP!
 
Hey guys,
Thanks for the replies. I do know XP like the back of my hand, but I'm one of those blokes who love learning something new, so I reckon I'll still dive into SBS '03 and see where I get with it. Both are installed, so whenever I mess up on the SBS and need my files on the network I just reboot into XP. I'll just keep doing that until I've got it right I suppose.

Being able to access documents remotely is going to be very important, I'm guessing the built in FTP support is pretty good? Any better equivalent, HTTP server?
 
I would explore the Remote Web Workplace, you can either use it from a personal device at home to control the PC in the office and everything it has access to, or alternatively (if everyone has laptops, for example) you could store documents within SharePoint and access that via Remote Web WorkPlace and access documents that way.
 
Minimoke said:
Hey guys,
Thanks for the replies. I do know XP like the back of my hand, but I'm one of those blokes who love learning something new, so I reckon I'll still dive into SBS '03 and see where I get with it. Both are installed, so whenever I mess up on the SBS and need my files on the network I just reboot into XP. I'll just keep doing that until I've got it right I suppose.

Being able to access documents remotely is going to be very important, I'm guessing the built in FTP support is pretty good? Any better equivalent, HTTP server?
Click to expand...

something to bear in mind is that sbs is 'wizard driven'. things may break if you deviate from that :)
 
s0ck said:
something to bear in mind is that sbs is 'wizard driven'. things may break if you deviate from that :)
Click to expand...

I have done this! Created users/computers manually in different OUs. They don't show up in the shiny Fisherprice console windows! :p
 
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