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Small business server

OrogogusOrogogus San DiegoRegistered User regular
in Help / Advice Forum
The company I work at has about 10 people who need computer access, and no dedicated IT department. We have one laptop currently set up as a file & print server over a Windows 8 homegroup and that's it. What's a simple solution that can allow for the following?

- Restricting who can access what files
- Automated backups, fairly easy restore process

...and that might be all. Should a cloud service be sufficient for us? I'm a little concerned because our Internet connection here is slower than what I get at home (5/1 Mb/sec here), but we don't often deal in large files. I'm probably the largest user of storage, with about 1.6 GB of files.

Any help appreciated.

Posts

  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator, Administrator admin
    I can recommend CrashPlan as a business solution. It sounds like you're talking about under 20 gigs of data, so you can just let it sit for a couple of days and upload that to the cloud backup.

    CrashPlan also lets you (for free) backup to other computers on the network, or other computers over the internet, which is a really neat feature to make your own offsite backup.

  • bowenbowen Sup? Registered User regular
    Crashplan or Carbonite would be my backup solutions. Cloud backup solutions have been the best thing to happen to backups since forever. Never tangle with tape backups, only heartache and frustration exist there.

    As for the server, avoid Windows Small Business Server. Get the full server outright. Places like Dell and HP have pretty decent entry level servers.

    http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/poweredge-t320/fs

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/12370.windows-server-2012-set-up-your-first-domain-controller-step-by-step.aspx

    That should get you started, you'll want to add AD users, then create shares on the server. Make sure you get enough hard drive space on this thing to cover your needs (devote 20 gigs to windows itself).


    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • MyiagrosMyiagros Registered User regular
    If you don't want to spend the money on an actual server you can get a Ctera unit. There are different sizes - 2 drives or 4 drives, it has built in file sharing and user restriction, and it can do Cloud backups as well. The C200 goes for about $500.

    iRevert wrote: »
    Because if you're going to attempt to squeeze that big black monster into your slot you will need to be able to take at least 12 inches or else you're going to have a bad time...
    Steam: MyiagrosX27
  • JasconiusJasconius sword criminal mad onlineRegistered User regular
    Google Business office tools... mail/drive/docs,etc

    internet speed *would* be a concern, but its cheap and reliable

    this is a discord of mostly PA people interested in fighting games: https://discord.gg/DZWa97d5rz

    we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
  • schussschuss Registered User regular
    Yeah, definitely go cloud. A ton of good stuff out there these days. Another option is to add files to projects and use something like basecamp.

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