10 PC Office Data Storage Recommendations
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Fresh from my (non infamous???) backup thread, I bring you this new thread. The answers to this will be quite helpful, as I run into this kind of scenario all the time.
Very small office. Let's say 5-10 employees. They are all storing data on their individual desktops.
Obviously, shared storage would be a big upgrade in many ways. So how do we get there?
What would you recommend in this scenario?
New server box with Server 2012/2016?
NAS box?
All cloud based?Once we get that down, we'll discuss backups, so please consider that we'll need to back this up in your recommendations.
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I would build a whitebox with XenServer. Create a virtual File Server from that and connect everyone to it.
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You could build an an MDADM RAID10 if you don't have a hardware raid controller from this guide here
Which includes running XenServer from a USB drive. This is listed for 4 disks, but as many as you can load into it would work as well.
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Once your MDADM RAID10 XenServer is up and running, I'd follow this guide (still a work in progress) to building an ISO and File server.
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NAS - easy to use & manage.
Synology DS412+ (cloudsync user's folders is niiiiiice)
Stuff it with the biggest drives you can afford, RAID10, done.
Setup a backup to cloud if you have the bandwidth, IOsafe or something else if you dont.
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So far sounds like no one thinks Server 2012/2016 is an option here?
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Licensing cost is just the biggest issue.
If you can have what you need, while saving a good chunk of money on licensing, why wouldn't you?
If you really want Microsoft, set it up as a VM on your preferred Hypervisor.
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Windows File servers provide some nice feature with FSRM as well as deduplication compared to a NAS. However with your small scale you may not need those features.
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At that size I would definitely be looking at a NAS like ioSafe, Synology and ReadyNAS. Something in the two to four bay range with RAID 1 (2 bay) or RAID 10 (4 bay.) Unless you need server features, which is unlikely at this size, I would not go that route.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Unless you need server features
What would you qualify as a "server feature"?
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@BRRABill said:
So far sounds like no one thinks Server 2012/2016 is an option here?
Cost would be outrageous for a company of this size. What would even bring them to the table, realistically? Spending $700 on licensing for what would amount to zero features is more money on software alone than the entire solution should cost.
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@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Unless you need server features
What would you qualify as a "server feature"?
Active Directory, email server, instant messaging, database, etc.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Active Directory, email server, instant messaging, database, etc.
Right, yeah I don't think so, nope.
The NAS (like the Synology) can do users?
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Synology (including ioSafe) and ReadyNAS both have AD Integration (useless in a group this small since you are below the AD threshold) and NTFS ACLs. Those are the "user" features.
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Adding @Brett-at-ioSafe you can guess which vendor he is with.
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@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Active Directory, email server, instant messaging, database, etc.
Right, yeah I don't think so, nope.
The NAS (like the Synology) can do users?
It will do Samba with users and permissions through its web gui.
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@johnhooks said:
It will do Samba with users and permissions through its web gui.
Meaning SMB. Samba is the name of the underlying code but not relevant to the users of a NAS - that's just under the hood. It is an SMB server like Windows. It does the same SMB features that Windows would do.
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@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Active Directory, email server, instant messaging, database, etc.
Right, yeah I don't think so, nope.
The NAS (like the Synology) can do users?
The synology NAS's are actually rather impressive. I'm much more fond of having a server, but with these beasties being so good it's hard to justify all the extra expense and maintenance of a server.
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@scottalanmiller said:
What would you describe as "doing users?"
Yeah after I typed that I thought it needed clarification.
Having never installed one of these things, how does it integrate with Windows, I guess is the question.
They'd have a Windows desktop logon, and then attach to a share, using the user account on the NAS?
