Advice on equipment for small business

Namistai

Namistai

Namistai

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Joined
29 Dec 2007
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775
Location
Shrewsbury
A close friend of mine has asked if I could help him with an IT setup for his two small businesses. Whilst I'm competent enough when it comes to speccing, building and installing home/gaming PC's, I'm a bit out of my depth when it comes to business solutions - hence I'm seeking some advice from those in the know (that means you guys ;)).

The two businesses will operate out of the same office, and currently they have a total of five staff. They are in the process of securing new (larger) office premises and there is intention for the businesses to expand to a total of around 12 employees over the next few years.

The general requirements are:

- Mirrored file storage, with separate physical drives for each business. The required capacity is likely to be around 500Gb (ish) for each business, hence I anticipate using 2x500Gb or 2x640Gb mirrored drives for each - so a total of 4x500/640Gb drives.
- Ability to remotely access files when away from the office.
- Gigabit and wireless N local connectivity.

Their current hardware consists of three desktop PC's and three laptops (all six running Vista Business or Vista Ultimate), two shared printers (possibly more in future), an eight way switch, and a very basic NAS system (Netgear pig). I anticipate retiring the NAS system or employing it as a separate backup facility (to be stored in a fireproof safe).

My feeling is that they could either use a more advanced NAS system that allows for four drives + gigabit networking + remote access, or alternatively a server system to provide these features and more to allow for future requirements. Either of these setups would be complemented by a larger switch (probably 24 port), and a wireless N router. Internet connectivity will be ADSL. The one business is a design/web agency and hence they deal with large photoshop files for print, hence network speed is an important consideration.

It should be noted that the wish is for the two business to employ the storage on separate hard drives to allow for future disaggregation of the businesses, should either expand such that they require separation of the businesses into their own individual premises.

I've looked around and can't really put my finger on a particular solution that will best suit the requirements. Hence I would appreciate any advice that can be offered!

TIA,
Nami

PS if if I've missed any information pls ask :)
 
What about some sort of off-site backup system as well?

Are you looking to have access restrictions on the local network, i.e. everyone has their own logins with particular privileges?

A NAS system would seem the way forward. I'm sure a lot of them are geared up for remote access.

Rgds
 
I guess the file storage should be secured such that to access files would require a login. At this stage there is no particular desire to have other privileges applied to user accounts, although there is always the possibility of this in future.

In terms of the backups, the current intention is to use the mirrors as the day to day backup in case of a drive failure, and then the secondary backup to be kept in the safe as the protection against fire and theft (altho I'm not sure if this is robust enough - but the same principle could be applied only with the backup drive being taken off site instead of remaining in the safe).
 
I know 500gb doesnt seem a lot at home when you've got a load of MP3s and DIVX movies etc but that is an absolutely astranomical amount for 5 business users. My company is just over 100 users and our file store is circa 120gb.

You dont want to be relying on the disk mirror for your daily "backup" - any viruses, corruption etc wont be protected by a disk mirror. When it comes to proper backup, whether that is removable disk, tape, online - capacity costs, so keep the storage down.

I think wanting separate arrays for the 2 businesses is a bit futile - if the need arises the files can be moved to separate media.

A decent quality server with SBS will give you all the security, performance and features you need. A small internal tape drive will mean they can take daily backups offsite and keep monthly archives in a fire safe
 
Unless they have a desire to burn cash I would go with something cheap and cheerful for so few users.
XP box + shares (ML110/115 with RAID1)
Online backup with differential compression (whack a USB drive on there too if you like)
Hosted email or even hosted Exchange

Then pop a half day fee on top for yourself ;)
 
s0ck said:
Unless they have a desire to burn cash I would go with something cheap and cheerful for so few users.
XP box + shares (ML110/115 with RAID1)
Online backup with differential compression (whack a USB drive on there too if you like)
Hosted email or even hosted Exchange

Then pop a half day fee on top for yourself ;)
Click to expand...

Its SBS or this, depending on how much they want to spend :)
 
The reason for the size of storage is due to the large photoshop files (often 500mb+), and it was also transferring those files that forced us to think about having separate storage drives for each business (i.e. when transferring those large files, the performance for other users will take a big hit). Thinking about it now, perhaps that transfer won't be very regular and hence you could be right in saying that combining the storage might be a reasonable idea. I do think that they will require at least 500Gb though, as they have around 250gb of data at present.

Ignoring the backup issues for a moment, would a simple XP or Vista box be capable of remote file access?

I did have a look at the ML110 and ML115 and they did appeal. Do you think this approach has significant benefit over an advanced NAS option?

Thanks for all the help so far :)
 
What sort of files are you wanting remote access to?

If it's the large photoshop files you mentioned then ADSL isn't going to fast enough. If everything is working as it should you're looking at over two hours per file. I can't actually think of any affordable connection that could transfer 500mb+ files in a reasonable amount of time.

Do you already have a data rated fire safe? If not check out the costs as even the small fire safe I purchased to store a few LTO tapes was quite expensive. The fire safes sold to protect documents aren't suitable.

You don't appear to have mentioned any kind of budget, is there one?
 
Remote Access can be achieved through usiing MS VPN authentication which ties in with AD, I found it most pleasing :)

Stelly
 
Yea I realise that remote accessing PS files isn't going to happen, but they'd like the flexibility to grab Office documents and website files etc. Unfortunately, living where we do ADSL is our only option so that's one limitation they will have to live with.

Thanks for that info Stelly - could you be a darling and explain it in a little more detail for this numty? :D Or maybe fire a link over that I can do my reading and come back a little better informed?

Cheers foy comments guys :)
 
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