Turborusty Posted July 28, 2009 Report Share Posted July 28, 2009 We want to set up a server here at home to handle my wife's business and our personal info. don't need anything big or fancy. probably 5-6 users.....doesn't need a ton of space either. What all do I need, how much am I looking at for cost? One fella my wife knows said his company could se us up with a system, and it would be about $10,000..........if he had told me that, I woulda pissed on on his shoes. I'm starting from zero here as far as knowledge. educate me....nothing fancy, nothing too pricey or gadget-laden. Thanks in advance, Turborusty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Komeuppance Posted July 28, 2009 Report Share Posted July 28, 2009 Server, for a website?? -Robert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turborusty Posted July 28, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 28, 2009 no...for file/calendar sharing, etc to be able to upload/access/update documents and such from here and remotely as well. She already has a 3rd party that runs her website Turborusty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jszucs Posted July 28, 2009 Report Share Posted July 28, 2009 Use the website you alreayd own and pay for. Why not have them build you a file share or even use sharepoint? Why pay to maintain, the power, the bandwidth etc for the PC at home? Heck if you just need to share documents open a G-mail account and give everyone the password. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turborusty Posted July 28, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 28, 2009 Use the website you alreayd own and pay for. Why not have them build you a file share or even use sharepoint? Why pay to maintain, the power, the bandwidth etc for the PC at home? Heck if you just need to share documents open a G-mail account and give everyone the password. It's not that simple. we all have email accts and gmail isn't up to par for this. It's a legitimate business and document-heavy. My wife and her employee need a place to be able to upload, say a load of 3,000 documents for a single client, where they both can access the info from wherever they are, make changes, etc. and when preparing a deliverable report, they can upload the draft and each make ammendments as needed and resave on the server. Emailing very sensitive financial and legal documents isn't a good idea in multi-million dollar fraud, theft, and embezzlement cases. And email correspondence can be subpoena'd as evidence in court. You don't want these email trails floating around. Also we can all share Outlook calendars so we all know who has what scheduled and when...... Sure, a server may not be exactly what we need, but a shared gmail account surely isn't. Thanks for the input. Turborusty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jszucs Posted July 28, 2009 Report Share Posted July 28, 2009 (edited) OK well now you have added some complexity. As for the security ha you have got to be joking right? Gmail can be use to SSL SSH tunnel what you need and that will be quite secure. Way more secure then any other way your sharing unless you were totaly controlling the network on and between both PC's and doing the same type of security internaly. This is also only going to be as secure as the people using it make it. IE they must use the PC for work only hopfuly one you issue and control, any other use allows a hacker to attack the PC IE if the user clicks on something or did an IM direct connect. A hacker could then gain control of the PC add a logger and keystrok logger and get all they need. When you say you want both to upload share and make changes do you want them to both be able to access at the same time? If so this is now super complex. Or do you want one to be able to check out (like a library) do as they wish and then check it back in (free the doc for others to access) If you want the second your going to want something like sharpoint or simmalar, I think the full on PDF publisher also has this type of function but it's been awhile. So if your dealing in PDF's (usualy legal docs are) this might be the ticket for you. If your looking for something like that a basic PC with a decent procesor and ram with enough storage space and a good network card and good ISP will due you fine other then. Since it will always be on your going to want to manage security with a fine tooth comb. and basic admin functions to keep it clean and running well. Another option is to setup a very secure remote login desktop type enviroment. But this will mean you will need savy users, and contorl over your networking at both ends to be secure. This leads me to. Do you need this to be user friendly and point and click type of setup? If your worried about "And email correspondence can be subpoena'd as evidence in court." Don't use E-mail protical then. Edited July 28, 2009 by jszucs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turborusty Posted July 28, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 28, 2009 that's what a server is, right? Basically like a heavy duty PC, with and O.S. and such? I think I need to look closer into what the typical functions of a server are. I'lll look through your notes here a little claser as time permits. Thanks again for the input! Turborusty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Posted July 29, 2009 Report Share Posted July 29, 2009 If you need a server, I have one I'm selling for my father in law. It will need some programing/setup to do what you want, but that is true of whatever you choose to do. I was used for a window sales office, had like 11 or 12 users on it, windows vista pro or whatever the best version of windows vista is, so it's pretty damn fast for wat you want to do. Has 3 hard drives, plus the OS on a seperate HD IIRC. It had propritary software loaded on it for the sales portion of the business, but that gets striped off and you can load what ever you want. Here are it's specs: it's a Dell 1900 Power Edge Server. Dual Core Xeon 5050 3.0 GHz. 2GB Ram. RAID 5 array . 4-160 GB Hard Drives . Internal Modem . CD-RW/DVD . Comes with 15 Window Servers user CAL's. It was used for 2-1/2 years. Not trying to pawn my junk off on you, but if you are looking, I'm selling. I think he wants $1000 for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turborusty Posted July 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 29, 2009 Thanks Chad! But it's looking like a server is way overkill for what we need here. So I'll keep you in mind aftr a little research to decide if we really need one or not. Turborusty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Komeuppance Posted July 29, 2009 Report Share Posted July 29, 2009 Not trying to pawn my junk off on you Damn, he doesn't want your junk Chad... let's start a website where can bash him with rumours!! That'll teach him!!11111123 At least you don't have to pester and thug him into leaving you positive feedback. -Robert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jszucs Posted July 29, 2009 Report Share Posted July 29, 2009 It's almost worth it for the CAL's but a server might be overkill. It would fit the bill and the RAID would be nice since it's work data you would never want to loose should anything happen. And don't lie to yourself stuff will happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dcrasta Posted August 17, 2009 Report Share Posted August 17, 2009 Thanks Chad! But it's looking like a server is way overkill for what we need here. So I'll keep you in mind aftr a little research to decide if we really need one or not. Turborusty Talk with the web hosting company. They can setup you up with a 'sharepoint' site just like what someone else has already said. If you are hosting a server and sensitive documents you will have to deal with network security and the compliance regulations (bs-7799, iso-200x etc.. ) and be able to demonstrate a disaster recovery plan etc otherwise you could be held financially responsible for any losses due to hackers or other data loss. I don't think you really want to take that on. The hosting company will also be able to provide secure email and other options for you. Just describe what you want the way you did to us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turborusty Posted August 17, 2009 Author Report Share Posted August 17, 2009 Thanks for the replies guys. You were right, it was way more than we needed. Ended up using a sharepoint site and after some tweaking, seems to be working well. And as for the calendars, I didn't realize Outlook already has that option built in, so that solves that issue as well. What we have will do for now, she turned down the MASSIVE case that was in the works, so the sheer volume of documents she anticipated won't be an issue......at least until another huge case comes along. Again, thanks for the advice. Turborusty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedSpaceship Posted November 18, 2009 Report Share Posted November 18, 2009 Thanks for the replies guys. You were right, it was way more than we needed. Ended up using a sharepoint site and after some tweaking, seems to be working well. And as for the calendars, I didn't realize Outlook already has that option built in, so that solves that issue as well. What we have will do for now, she turned down the MASSIVE case that was in the works, so the sheer volume of documents she anticipated won't be an issue......at least until another huge case comes along. Again, thanks for the advice. Turborusty when you decide to revisit this question ... for heavy file sharing only one way to go .. RAID 10 setup with SATA drives for inexpensive or SAS for expensive but faster sharing. Take your pick from any Dell tower server .. CPU utilization won't be too much of a issue for file sharing but hard drive will be hit heavily so a RAID10 gives you the speed you want. You guys would do fine with a $1500 2008 server with basic 4GB RAM, 1GB ethernet, decent CPU (xeon is all you will see in a good server) and a dam good storage solution ... i'd just pack 4 500GB SATA drives in a RAID 10 ... cheap and fast. I build servers for a top finance company for a living and Dell is good enough with a great savings compared to HP and IBM ... avoid supermicro or other crap brands like the plague. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turborusty Posted December 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 2, 2009 As an update......long time coming, sorry. We opened a legitimate office and outfitted it properly. We had a local company set up a whole server sytem and 4 workstations. very robust machines! As well as a complete VOIP phone system. It all kicks a**! Turborusty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Al Posted December 3, 2009 Report Share Posted December 3, 2009 For what you need, you can build a decent desktop PC and have it all with that. Desktop motherboards typically support RAID setups now, the hardware is generally similar, and the desktop will multitask as a regular PC as well as a server if done right. Servers tend to have a few advantages like being able to hotswap a hard drive but I don't really foresee you needing to do that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turborusty Posted December 3, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 3, 2009 Well, in short order, she now has a handful of employees working, many of whom are logging into the server remotely to work. It really urned out to be exactly what we needed. Tiff's own desktop PC is really cool too, with a quad-core processor, 8G of RAM and a solid state Hard Drive. Turborusty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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