Truthfully - in the beginning, you might have been better off (since these
are business computers) getting Windows XP Professional - but working with
what you've got, this is likely what I would have done...
A networked attached hard disk drive (Network Attached Storage or NAS) would
have done your 'centralized storage' just fine. Windows XP Home - unless
the software you utilize requires more - would likely work fine all around.
The machines in question would access the central file repository (NAS)
either using software installed upon each of them OR (in the better NAS
devices) just as a shared disk drive (for example, S:\.) As for your
software - depending on how it functions - it may/may not have trouble using
such an area. I do not know from the information given. If it 'saves each
quote' as a seperate file - it would be no problem. I don't know how much
space you need (or how much space you have on that server you purchased and
had installed) but something like one of these BuffaloTech products would
have been ideal:
http://www.buffalotech.com/products/network-storage/
.... with the most expensive being right at $2000 US dollars for 4TB (4000GB
or 4,000,000MB) of space - which I cannot see a business that runs off three
Windows XP Home computers using very quickly (unless you record a lot of
music and deal in huge graphic images or movie files.) More reasonable
would likely be the 1TB TeraStation version for about $700 US dollars. You
could even go with a different product from them (LinkStation Live) which
has a built in Web Server so you can access your files from
anywhere/anytime. It's between $600 to $700 US dollars.
That handles the centralized storage nicely - likely a bit overkill - but
unused space is not wasted space - it is room for growth. ;-) As for the
other thing - your remote access. I don't know much about how your office
connects to the Internet, but I bet there is some sort of Cable/DSL Router
(or just a router) involved that takes the one Internet line you have and
allows all of the computers behind it to share that connection. Your
computers communicate internally on what is called a private network and
through the same box - they share the one larger line you have coming from
the Internet itself. In that case - you don't *really* need a 'static IP
address' - you just needed someone to set you up with a Dynamic DNS service
and configure the router and computers in such a way to allow you to connect
to them remotely.
This is how that works... You have the router that allows the computers to
all share the Internet through it. It likely gives the computers connected
to it IP Addresses like 192.168.x.x (private addresses) and it keeps the
public (Internet) address all to itself. It probably has a way of
configuring a Dynamic DNS service on it so that no matter what happens to
its actual Internet address (IP) - you could always communicate with it from
anywhere as long as you could remember the fully qualified domain name you
would assign it using the service. An example of one of these services
(FREE!) is:
http://www.dyndns.com/services/dns/dyndns/
So your router - the box allowing you to share the Internet amongst all the
computers on the other side of it - might be configured with a name like
michellejr.thruhere.net <-- which means whenever you want to connect to the
router, you would connect to michellejr.thruhere.net and not some IP address
that looks like 208.234.234.35 and is hard to remember and might change at
random. That's the first part.
The second part would be installing something like UltraVNC (free :
http://www.ultravnc.com/) on the three machines in the office and
configuring each of them to utilize a different port for connecting and
configuring the router to know which machine answers to which port and
pass-thru the traffic accordingly... Then you - with a small 'viewer'
program you could carry around on a floppy diskette, thumb drive, or have
saved on a computer always - could type in the Dynamic DNS name
(michellejr.thruhere.net) followed by the port the system you wish to
connect to is assigned (michellejr.thruhere.net::5900) to connect to that
machine from anyplace with an Internet connection. You then have full
remote control of the machine 'at the office' and you see what is actually
on the screen there and can use it just like if you were sitting in front of
the machine. If you check your email on the machine at the office
exclusively right now - since you are remotely using the same machine in
this case - that does not change.
Now - I have had to assume a bit there. I assumed that you have some router
that you control and can configure (or have configured) in the ways I
mentioned. I assumed that you would not need many terabytes of space and
that the application you are using to generate these quotes would be able to
save to a centralized location. I assumed that the machines in your office
are already on the same network with one another and could - theoretically -
communicate and share files with one another if configured to do so (if they
are on the same network - they can.) I assumed you have some high-speed
Internet at your home (or the location you will be wanting to remote into
the office from) so that the remote connection would be more than tolerable.
I assumed that all of your current systems (including the one at home) are
likely some version of Windows.
Now - can you do all of that with a Small Business Server and three Windows
XP Professional machines? Sure. You'll likely end up paying your internet
Service Provider a monthly fee to get a 'static IP' address for the server
and then the server (with however much hard disk drive space) will either
have that IP to itself and share out your internet connection with the other
machines or the router that connects it and the other machines to the
internal (private) network and the Internet will be configured to pass
certain types of traffic through to the server before going to the other
machines, etc. The Windows XP Home machines could map drive shares (as that
seems to be your main use for it - file storage) on the Small Business
Server with no problem - but with Windows XP Professional on all the
machines and a Small Business Server - you could also centralize your logon
names and such using a domain setup instead of three stand-alone computers.
It does give it more of an actual 'growing business' feel to it, and if your
business is at that point where it is growing into something like that and
more and more computers may be added with more and more people over time
(and everyone wants that) - then yeah - I can see jumping into Windows XP
Professional on all the workstations, a SBServer and a domain setup to
centralize control.
However - I think you should have been informed that there *were* options
that probably would not have cost as much. I am sure you are paying a
decent amount for the server, the software, the installation and then the
installation/configurtation and troubleshooting that would be involved in
the upgrading of the three Windows XP Home systems. And there will be
issues that will arise in such a migration. ;-)
You'd have to pay for the NAS device, its 'installation' and configuration
ton the current machines, someone to configure the router and machines for
the remote control capability like I said as well... I cannot see that
being as much money as the other alternative (unless that SBServer was
fairly inexpensive and there is little or no trouble in the migration during
any upgrades to Windows XP and the connectivity to a new domain...) Some of
the configurations *will* overlap - like the router config for remote
capabilities... Although, you may end up with a monthly bill for a static IP
where the dynamic dns option was free.
Now you may ask why I am telling you all this in such detail... Well, I
think if you read it and try to understand it - and then MENTION it to those
doing the work - you might give them a shock. I'm not saying with 100%
certainty that they are taking advantage of your lack of knowledge - maybe
they explained some of these options to you, maybe many of my assumptions
are incorrect - but it does pay to know a little about something before
dropping a lot of money. ;-)