Simple network setup

tom_e · 30 Mar 2011 at 14:22

Afternoon guys, I've been asked by a company I do some work for if I can set them up a simple bit of networking.
Basically they want to be able to access the files stored on the main office computer from around 3 other PCs and 1 Mac, at the moment they are running off the stock modem/router supplied by BT and can all access the internet which they do wirelessly.
Now I'm thinking all I need to do is add all the computers to the same workgroup and share the folder on the main PC and bingo they should all be able to access the files.
They also want a backup solution which I plan on sorting by using an external hdd they have already and scheduling that through windows, also possibly having it backup onto a cloud based provider depending on how much they want to spend although these are business critical files so will strongly suggest they use it for an off site backup.
Along with this they want the ability to sync their outlook calenders on their single PCs with the Google calender they use, from what I've seen this isn't possible on the mac but thats not a major issue and to do it on the windows PC I just need to install and setup the google sync application.
Does that sound like it should do the job?

PistolPete · 30 Mar 2011 at 14:28

Simple, but should work.

Paul11 · 30 Mar 2011 at 14:30

yes, that is one option

if the files they share are not too big you can also use something like dropbox to sync the computers, this will give automatic backup and allow syncing and access to the files from off site.

The other option is to get a NAS drive that they all store the documents on...

tom_e · 30 Mar 2011 at 14:36

PistolPete said:
Simple, but should work.

Simple's what I'm going for its only a small business so they don't need anything too complex or expensive for the moment at least.

Paul11 said:
yes, that is one option

if the files they share are not too big you can also use something like dropbox to sync the computers, this will give automatic backup and allow syncing and access to the files from off site.

The other option is to get a NAS drive that they all store the documents on...

That's a fair point I use dropbox personally but didn't even think about it for this. I did consider a NAS set up but I think for the moment at least that would be slight overkill and expensive.

tom_e · 30 Mar 2011 at 23:00

I've been looking into the dropbox solution as it gives them all the features they want plus a few extras only problem is they plan on storing information that is subject to the DPA and as dropbox is based outside of the EU and is not part of the safe harbor program it's a no go.
Does anyone know of anything that gives dropbox style features and wont fall foul of the DPA?

moorlander · 31 Mar 2011 at 21:11

Take a look at Wuala - I believe it is European based, and now owned by Lacie. Don't know about DPA though.
Wuala allows you to "trade storage" whereby you can allocate part of your own hard disk for their use (as part of a secure P2P) system and in return you get offsite cloud storage. The actual amount of storage you get depends on how much of your own storage you allocate and how long your machine is online per day. As an example if you were to allocate 10gb of HD space to Wuala and your machine was online for 40% of the time you would get 4gb of online storage. It might be worth a look!