Cloud based server

I_AM_BOWSER · 5 Mar 2019 at 19:28

Good evening,

I am in need of some advice, I am starting a small business with a friend where we are both going to require access from home to a server. What are my best options?

We are the only two who are going to be accessing the server but form different locations, we will need about a terabyte of storage to begin with and will not be running any high demand software.

Any advise will be greatly appreciated.

Oh Ed not again. · 5 Mar 2019 at 19:30

What is the server doing? Running an application, or just serving out files? If so do you need access to said files from multiple device types?

I_AM_BOWSER · 5 Mar 2019 at 19:32

We will need an exchange on there for email and a place for storing and swapping out files as you said. We won't be running any applications from the server. We need to access it from both of our PC's.

Thanks for any help, I am clueless with servers.

Oh Ed not again. · 5 Mar 2019 at 19:45

Personally I think I'd struggle to justify running Exchange for two accounts. If you need Exchange specifically then probably something like this would be more suited: https://products.office.com/en-gb/exchange/compare-microsoft-exchange-online-plans

Then something like DropBox, Amazon S3 or even Google Drive with the appropriate storage plan for storage. Then just put the PC addons for each service to present the storage as a drive on your PC.

You could have course get a VPS/dedicated server with Windows Server, Exchange then set up file/print services etc but it's another thing to manage and it's more expensive overall. Using Exchange Online and a cloud based storage frees you up from the support headache, security concerns and the like and just leaves you to get on with your business. As and when you need something more SMB oriented you could just migrate to a more purpose built solution.

I_AM_BOWSER · 5 Mar 2019 at 20:03

Haha, you have made it all so simple! Thank you very much for your help, much appreciated.

With regards to the "File storage & sharing 1 TB of OneDrive storage for file storage and sharing" tab on the link below. Does that work just like dropbox up to 1tb?

https://products.office.com/en-gb/business/small-business-solutions

Oh Ed not again. · 5 Mar 2019 at 21:36

Yep, pretty much. Sign into OneDrive in W10, get access to all of your files through Explorer/My Computer.

No worries, happy to help and good luck with your business.