10 PC Office Data Storage Recommendations
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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?
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@MattSpeller said:
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.
Looking at the website, definitely looks interesting.
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Now pure hosted is a very valid approach too. It depends on the scenario, robustness of features desired, etc. Of course we expect any email, intranet and other features to be hosted. It is only the storage that we are discussing here.
Products like Google Apps include Google Drive. MS Office 365 includes One Drive for Business and SharePoint for storage. And you can build your own like ownCloud for cheap on services like Vultr. Plus there are third party products like ownCloud's own hosted server, DropBox, etc.
