Small Office Network Help.

Countcussy

Countcussy

Countcussy

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Joined
10 Nov 2006
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1,354
We have 4 PC`s in the office. All are D***s and are a 2-3 years old. We all have Sage accounting software installed. One of the machines is not constantly used, so the actual business account is stored on that machine, with the 3 main users all accessing it through Sage.

The 4 PC`s are currently all linked via Cat5 cable, through a Netgear switchbox. There is also a 5th cable that travels down the yard to a wireless router and network backup drive, stored in a seperate building on the premises. PC`s have come and gone, but essentially, this setup has remained unchanged since we started business in 1996.

As a small (but successful;)) business, we have no IT managers/experts, and it is up to me to look after the computing side. As the company has grown, Sage is getting rather bloated, & my boss has asked about the possibilty of upgrading the network, for better speed, and/or the addition of a dedicated server. That is where you guys come in.

None of our PC`s have Gigabit LAN equipment. So at a minimum, I would need 4 cards, a switch, and possibly replacement cables. Would the move to gigabit be worth it? It certainly looks relatively cost effective upgrade.

What benefit, if any, would a dedicated server give us over our current set up?

Any input or advice would be welcome. Especially if you think our network could be setup better.

:)
 
I assume that it is already running 100mbit and that the netgear is a switch and not a hub? With the amount of traffic your using I doubt you would see much benefit moving to 1gbit. But it maybe worth upgrading your switch to something like a little ProCurve 1400 which would give you 8 ports that can run at 1gb. As long as the cable is Cat5e then it should run at a gig no problem.

Depending on your IT knowledge it could be worth putting in a SBS server with some redundancy (i.e RAID1) which you could use for file/print/exchange/etc.. But like I say it would depend on your knowledge as this could just complicate things.
 
it's unlikely you are going to see any benefit going all gig on the networking side. that's not to say, however, that you shouldn't run gig to a dedicated server if you end up with one. another shout for sbs from me, it's perfect for this environment - proper email (incl webmail, and integration with smartphones if they support it), proper shared calendaring, proper intranet, proper centralised file storage, easy remote access, simple built-in backup and overall an absolute doddle to manage. it's dirt cheap too, even more so if you buy it oem with server hardware.
 
Thanks guys. I will have a look into SBS. Not something I am familiar with, but I am always eager to learn. :)

Switch is a Netgear FS108, which looking on the net, appears to be a switch as opposed to a hub. (I maybe got lucky when I purchased it ;))
 
If you plan to go down this route it maybe worth doing a little reading on Active Directory/DNS/Exchange, setup some VM's and have a play.

Although SBS is fairly easy to get up and running if/when things start to go wrong it could be quite daunting.

Another thing to note if your going to run your own mail server you will want to use a decent ISP which give you a static IP.
 
When you say 'slow'. What does that mean? Opening Sage? Processing reports? Backing up Sage?

You need to be 100% sure that the network is actually slow.

More likely that the PC which is "not used the most" is the one with the slowest disk, and the least RAM and this could be what needs upgrading.

What disks are in there? How much ram.

Disks and RAM are dirt cheap now. I would look at upgrading those as a first step. Then start network benchmarking and deciding if you really need to upgrade the network.
 
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