Novice server questions

[bertles86]

Hi folks,

I'm an experienced IT/Hardware technician but know very little about servers.

I am looking for your help and advice on explaining the best server solution for a small business, with roughly 10-12 end-users.

We currently have this setup:

Networked Ricoh SME Multi-function Printer
Western Digital My World 1TB NAS Drive
Several Windows 7 Home Premium PC's (mostly custom builds)
Several " " Laptops
Microsoft Online Services (Exchange/SharePoint Online): soon to be O365

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I would love anyone's input into where we go from here, as the business grows, we add more stations and the NAS will eventually grind to a halt. I am looking at some sort of IBM/Custom Rackmount Server (We have a small office rack with network switches/rackmount router etc.) running Windows Storage Server 2008 R2...is this the right direction?

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Would the following make sense:

Rackmount Server with a Xeon CPU + 4 x 2TB WD HDD's
Windows Storage Server 2008 R2

Do end-user stations (PC's/Laptops) need to also run the Server OS or can they keep their Home Premium/Professional Editions and access the storage via the Storage OS?

Will the printer integrate through the server or simply remain connected directly to the network switch?

Finally would our Quickbooks (Account S/W) company file be able to be stored and accessed from the server? As currently we host this from a standard PC so it must remain on and logged in for others to access Quickbooks.

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Any help for a novice server-ite greatly appreciated.

 

[bertles86]

Ok thanks Sly, there's some good stuff there.

So budget, no real ceiling so long as it's applicable my boss would go for it.

Through MOS we have access to licenses for MS Small Business Server Essentials and Standard.

But as I understand the basics, we install a Server OS onto the Server, and the client machines remain using their Client OS such as Windows 7 Professional...is that correct?

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Essentially I could get a small server with a fair bit of storage used for file/folder centralisation, printer sharing and QB sharing, with the NAS setup for automated nightly backups of all the data?

Is that about right?