Small Business setup - Server really needed?

[DoubleCheese]

We are using 7 dated Dell Optiplex workstations, XP Pro SP3, and a Dell Server running SBS2003.

Over the past few months we've moved our mail to Google Apps and we are sharing some Document there too. Most of our documents and data is still stored on the Dell Server though.

Our workstations need updating sometime soon and I'm trying to work out whether we can get away with a lower power server, HP Microserver?, to host and serve our main shared documents. Or whether new Win7 Pro machines will work well with the SBS2003 Dell server.

Any ideas on the best cost effective way to for a small business to achieve this?

 

[Deleted member 77746]

Cloud is the way forward I personally think. Unless it's masses and masses of users but then all you do there is upgrade the net connection. We are moving on a higher backend soon.

 

[DoubleCheese]

What would you recommend for hosting/serving our shared data?

 

[Deleted member 77746]

How much storage is needed by your company? (How much is used at the moment?)

 

[DoubleCheese]

Less than 50Gb

 

[visibleman]

Online storage has it's advantages but you also have the headaches of data legality and, if it applies, storage of sensitive data. As well as the obvious disadvantage in that you're completely reliant on your internet connection (unless you plan to source a fallback connection and the increase cost of doing so) and the various headaches that come with that.

Understandably this isn't a solution for everyone but if the SBS2003 system is simply acting as storage, and you're not needing/using other features that SBS offers (especially internet routing/firewall etc), then one solution would be to keep file storage onsite and replace the SBS2003 system with a decent raided NAS solution.
Individually maintaining 7 workstations shouldn't be too arduous and you also remove the headaches mentioned above with online storage.

To be honest, it depends on the offices'/companies exact requirement and the equipment that is currently in place.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

^^ I agree

 

[jake108]

One thing may be worth exploring is something my works have been working on with what is essentially a hybrid cloud / replication system.

Everything is stored in the cloud but you can set a local copy of the data to be replicated / used on your local network at the application level. i.e. you connect into an application it syncs if it can find the cloud, if not it waits until the connection is restored before syncing. The app is installed on all the client machines and then has a master copy on the network.

The idea is if you do lose your internet connection - your data will still be available on one of the client machines using an application. It is not really mature as of yet and currently goes under various names - big data local replication, cloud storage syncing etc. Sugarsync also in the latest releases has a form of this too.

I agree with visibleman, look at what you are using and what you need.

 

[m4cc45]

If you have it locally you can control access, backup, etc. much better than in the cloud. If you're having it cloud based then you have to factor in a very decent internet connection (synchronous) and then a backup should it go down.

I've known some companies who have had 2gb databases, etc. and to pull them from the cloud is painful. Having them on your local file server is much better as you know exactly when the backup ran, if it was successul, etc. with a cloud based solution you have no idea if it was done, what success rate, etc. and you're reliant upon there SLA's if you ever need to recover anything.

You could use offline files to achieve the same thing (synching with an online drive) it's been available for over a decade and would do exactly the above - in fact most laptop users use it as they're often without a connection.

If you're asking if SBS2003 will work with Windows 7 then yes it will work fine. You need an Enterprise or Professional version though if you want them to be a domain PC.



M.

 

[knowlesy]

We are using 7 dated Dell Optiplex workstations, XP Pro SP3, and a Dell Server running SBS2003.

Over the past few months we've moved our mail to Google Apps and we are sharing some Document there too. Most of our documents and data is still stored on the Dell Server though.

Our workstations need updating sometime soon and I'm trying to work out whether we can get away with a lower power server, HP Microserver?, to host and serve our main shared documents. Or whether new Win7 Pro machines will work well with the SBS2003 Dell server.

Any ideas on the best cost effective way to for a small business to achieve this?

HP Micro server with SBS Essentials and 8gb of ram would do the trick ?