small office setup

englishpremier

englishpremier

englishpremier

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Hi there

I work in a small office with 4 PCs and one laptop. The network is very basic and the computers all run different 'home' versions of XP or Vista.

The network looks as follows.

ASDL---Router----Switch-----Pcs

PC1 is a workstation but also contains all the data we need on a daily basis (10gb). This is accessible via a shared drive mapped onthe other computers. Not ideal. This is backed-up to a usb drive every night.

PC2 is a workstation and a print server.

The other PCs and laptops ar workstations.

We are having a new pc delivered tomorrow and I'm tasked with turning one of the old computers into a file/print/fax server. I'd use Linux but it would take me a while to setup (i'm not 100% familiar with it for these tasks) and i'm leaving soon and no-one else would understand it.

so i'll be using either windows xp or 2000. The new set-up should be


ADSL--Router--PC0 (print/file/fax server)----switch----PCs

To do the tasks listed will need any other software? I also want to automate the back up.


Whats the best way to go about this? I have budgeted 7 hours for setup and implementation.
 
Wardie said:
Personally i'd of just got a managed storeage device that you can from OcUK for example, and then a network printer :)
Click to expand...

second that

get one of these
HD-029-BT_400.jpg

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-029-BT&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=707

- Samba Server
- NFS Server
- FTP Server
- DHCP Server
- UPnP-AV
- ITunes Support
- Print Server
- Gigabit Ethernet

two of these
HD-138-SE_400.jpg

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-138-SE&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=768

stick them in raid 1

total spend £179.74 inc VAT

then get another to to as back up, just back the NAS up at 1am every day, but put 2 500GB hard drives, so you can make mutable copy's of data.

again in raid 1

total £214.99 inc VAT

= £394.73 inc vat, all sorted
 
Dont get the Icy Box, its not quick enough.

Use one of the old PC's with XP on it and pay £4 odd pounds a month to www.mozy.com to backup data. Pop a printer on it and share it. Simple and effective.

Don't put linux in if you don't know it. You'll end up spending all your time on fixing something simple.

If you want to pop a usb drive on it for backups (coupled with Mozy) you could use SyncBack to backup all the data on the machine.
 
Hi,

The main thing to think about is the backup. To do this you can set up a scheduled windows task (see in control panel) and then run a batch file that copies your data area's to the USB backup device. That will give you the data on the server and also a copy on the USB drive. The only real drawback is you can't restore back to data from further than a day ago.

To get round this either do a dvd backup everynight and then you will have a lot of historical data you can restore from if needed.

The other thing to bear in mind is Windows XP only allow 10 concurrent connections so if the office expands beyond 10 PC's then only 10 at once can access the "server".

Also carefully plan the file system layout and security rights to make it simple for the users but secure and easy for you to manage.

Hope that helps :)
 
I get around the backup issue by creating a folder with each day on. Copy each day to that folder then backup the whole folder. Its a bit dirty but works.
 
with regards to using a pc as a print server, dont do it, it will slow the machine down significantly while it processes prints, especially colour.
Buy a decent router and you could possibly hook a printer to it instead.
 
Guys-- using what the be the spare PC to file/print and fax serve is my only choice.

If i had my way we'd do a a lot of things different but its a small office (with expansion extremely unlikely) with a small office mentality.

5 connections will be maximum, hell we only have 4 phone lines and some of the girls do telesales.
 
I'm not concerned with print slowing things down.

The main printer is currently attached to my workstation and it is perfectly fine, unless i'm really giving it some - but then that because they got me a pc with Vista and on 768mb ram.
 
Nothing wrong with using an old PC as the server, and yes, use windows if there is going to be no linux support around.

However, your second diagram:
Why would you put the file/print server between the router and switch? for one this would mean you would need two network cards, and two you would need to enable routing on the box (windows server territory for routing and remote access services) or use windows internet connection sharing, and there is no point as your router already does that stuff.
Just plug it into the router like you would a normal pc, no need to overcomplicate this setup.

INTERNET
....|
....|
*****Router*****
|...........|..............|
PC1......SERVER.......PC2

etc etc
 
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