Would a server good for this situation?

gee3000

gee3000

gee3000

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Hi

I am trying to sort out our network at work so it is fast and reliable. Let me explain what we have so far. I'm not an IT professional so some of what I might say won't make sense lol.

Our "network":
  • An unmanaged 100m 24port switch.
  • A DMC 308mbps N Wireless Modem/Router for internet access.
  • 2 rooms with fitted RJ45(?) cables in trunking (professionally).
  • 4 main work desktops with XP SP3.
  • 2 computers on NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 as RIPS, which are coupled with our film/large format printers so can't be formatted/upgraded
  • 2 digital network printers
  • 1 networked cctv system

  • Currently the modem/router acts as dchp server (?) providing IP addresses to all of our machines, it is plugged into our switch, which is connected to the rj45 connections all over the place.
  • Currently our main usage of the network is the 2 printers and file sharing. Both rips just pick up files from a network folder and process them.

Our computers:
  • 1 of these stores about 400gb worth of files (main computer) and is used for graphic design
  • these files are shared using standard XP file sharing (no other software)
  • the other 3 computers also access these files every day via mapped drives
    for graphic design

Problems we're having:
  • File access is generally slow, a folder containing ~500+ files takes ~4-5 seconds to load.
  • Printing is also generally slow as we use large files

What we hope to achieve:
  • Much faster file access and printing speeds
  • Reliable and consistent, (preferably) automated backup solution for the 400gb file store
  • Easy external backup to ext hdd

What we may need:
  • A gigabit switch with built in modem, firewall etc??
  • New router? I don't believe the one we have is of high quality, and maybe a business solution would be better than a home-solution?
  • A server/computer running Windows Server?? which will not be used, just left in an office.
  • Someone had suggested SCSI drives??
  • Someone else had suggested THIS for the server, would it be good enough?

I am not at all familiar with professional business network solutions and products which are available, so any help and recommendations would be much much appreciated!

Ideally I would like someone to provide me a total suggestion/plan for equipment we should consider and how we should set it up?

Budget would be of course as inexpensive as possible without compromising too much quality. We don't need anything spectacular, just something mid range which we won't have to upgrade for another 3-5 years.

Apologies if I have been too vague, please feel to ask anything I may have missed.

Many thanks.
Gee.
 
Your basic necessities under "What we may need" is pretty sound for your scope.

May I ask budget? (Based around the suggested PC im guessing its tight?)
 
I'd buy something like a an HP ML350 or ML370 with a bunch of SATA drives in RAID5 if you want to keep the cost down or SAS drives if you can afford a bit more. Running server 2008 obviously, get it to do DHCP and DNS as it'll be better at it than a cheap router. Then a good gigabit switch (HP, 3com, Cisco). That's your basics.

If you have spare cash a proper router/firewall (Netscreen SSG / Cisco ASA) and a decent wireless access point (3Com or linksys are pretty good to be honest) would be next probably.
 
Really we have no budget, but we'd like to spend only as much as necessary for a good pc. Say the max is about £400+vat if it'll mean we can get somethin proper.

£200+vat budget was just to keep costs minimal, but we don't want to compromise on quality, speed or reliability which is why I am reconsidering that spec.

Also, is there a difference between a "server" and a pc with a big hard drive? :\ some have recommended getting a "proper server" but I am lost. Also, Windows - is Windows Server Edition necessary?? We don't want roaming profiles n domain n all that stuff, cos we have 1 computer per desk per person, so no one moves around really.

Budget for the switch - anything between £200-400+vat??

We're only want to invest in equipment once so we're flexible at the moment as long as it isn't in the thousands lol.
 
bigredshark said:
I'd buy something like a an HP ML350 or ML370 with a bunch of SATA drives in RAID5 if you want to keep the cost down or SAS drives if you can afford a bit more. Running server 2008 obviously, get it to do DHCP and DNS as it'll be better at it than a cheap router. Then a good gigabit switch (HP, 3com, Cisco). That's your basics.

If you have spare cash a proper router/firewall (Netscreen SSG / Cisco ASA) and a decent wireless access point (3Com or linksys are pretty good to be honest) would be next probably.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your suggestions, could you provide links please?
 
If you are going to look at the ML350/ML370 (highly recommended over the pc spec you have there) then look at the Top Value models as you get more for your money.

470064-609 - ML350 1 x Xeon E5420 Quad Core 1GB (2x512MB) Hot Plug SFF SAS Diskless with DVD±R/RW

470064-610 - ML350 1 x Xeon E5420 Quad Core 1GB (2x512MB) Hot Plug LFF SAS Diskless with DVD±R/RW

470064-617 - ML370 1 x Xeon E5440 Quad Core 2GB (2x1GB) Hot Plug SFF SAS Diskless DVD±R/RW
 
You want to spend £400 total?

Thats not very much, so I dunno, get an icy box and a gigabit switch or something.
 
Ok so you have 400GB of files at the moment and looking for a solution which will keep you going for 3 - 5 years.

How long has it taken for you to accumulate this amount of data? Have you thought about how much this may grow over the next 4 - 5 years?

I really can't see you doing this properly within your budget, presuming its a business and therefore not eligible for license discounts the server license would cost more than your max budget alone...
 
Hi

Thanks for your responses.

The ML115 seems like what we're after (though I hope the low spec cpu, ram, etc won't affect its ability to perform the task) as opposed to the previous suggestions, which are way more expensive than I was expecting.

@ Sp00n: £400 for the server (not including software, someone will be providing us this separately - but pls recommend anything) + £200-250 for a decent gigabit switch?

@ gamesaregood: 300gb of the 400gb accumulated over 10 years but it is growing at a faster rate as our files get bigger. I would say in another 5 years we may get to 1TB.

@ Pae0n: Currently we manually copy/paste all files to an external hdd once a week. We also create local backups. The current system has near 2TB capacity, so we keep 2-3 backups.


Thanks again for your help.
 
I look after the IT for our very small office which is a similar size to yours and to be honest I wouldn't bother if you only have £400 budget. We spent about £1500 on a server, switch and router which should see us happy for the next 10 years.
 
10 years? Thats pretty optimistic!

If I "had" to do it with such a small amount, I would probably go for:

DGS-1016D 16 port gigabit unmanaged
Poweredge 840 - Probably try and squeeze a couple of 500gb drives in there

Trouble is backing up that kinda size is going to cost you, as you really want to be looking at LTO.

Its just such a strangled budget, you're going to have to give one way or another.

You could probably save some more cash by going the second hand route.
 
Okay I had a word with the owner of the business and he's said we're willing to consider any budget as long as we get a system which we want and importantly NEED, so nothing which will be overkill.

With the servers you recommended - would anyone care to explain how they work? How are they managed, how do we use them? lol sorry for my complete lack of understanding on this, I'm no expert but I've been told to find out as much as I can so as to avoid paying someone who is... Please help! I've stated our situation and requirements in my initial post.

Thanks again.
 
It doesn't look like you will have the most complex setup, am sure people will be able to guide you through installation, any questions etc.

For your 400GB shared files you would set up a 'Shared' folder (Surprisingly!) which you would then map to each machine (Mapped using a log-on script)

Your printers would all be attached to the server and then once again added to each of your desktop machines on the domain with a logon script.

With regards to backup for business's on a budget i have started to use external drives, you can use applications such as Symantec backup Exec to do this - easy to set up and administrate.

Also to consider will need to provide for employees to work Remotely?

I would wait for other opinions form people on this as i'm not the most knowledgeable but should point you in the right direction.

Let me know if you have any specific questions.
 
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If you don't have anyone in the office that is technically able to manage a server, i probably wouldn't go for one. The setting up of user accounts/dhcp/dns/AD as a whole can be a bit confusing. Even with the help of everyone on here, it may be a bit much.

It may be better to purchase just a normal PC (XP Pro or similar) set up all your shares on there and use RAID for redundancy and external HDDs for backup...
 
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