OT: Small server for office - possible?

  • Thread starter Thread starter BillL
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BillL

Hi all

Please indulge my curiosity ;o)

Apologies if this rambles on a bit (should have posted *before* the red wine
;o) but how much would it cost to build a server for around 20 users? To
explain further I work in an office (local council in the UK) and we all
have our own letters and emails etc. on our local HDD's. We'd like to be
able to back up this information but the IT department have told us there is
no space on the servers and if we want our own one we'll need to spend
£2000 - £3000.

Some of us can back up documents etc. on CDR/CDRW and it has been suggested
that we get an external USB DVD drive (the PC's are all Dell P4's with USB
2.0.) so it shouldn't be too slow to do this? Trouble is individual users
would have to remember to do this and incremental back-ups would present
some problems?

However, I was wondering if it would be feasible to set up a local PC/Server
which is networked to a group of local users?
I was thinking of an AMD PC (Opteron or AMD 64 or dual processors - not
Intel!) a RAID array (probably with 2+ 120 GB HDD's) and about 1 - 2 GB of
RAM - as a starting config?

Now our IT department are about as flexible as the average diamond I don't
think they'd even consider the above but I don't believe it wouldn't be
possible to store word documents and mail for less than £2000!

I should mention that I've never set up a server or a RAID system and do not
profess to be an expert . . . at anything!

TIA

BillL
 
BillL said:
Hi all

Please indulge my curiosity ;o)

Apologies if this rambles on a bit (should have posted *before* the red wine
;o) but how much would it cost to build a server for around 20 users? To
explain further I work in an office (local council in the UK) and we all
have our own letters and emails etc. on our local HDD's. We'd like to be
able to back up this information but the IT department have told us there is
no space on the servers and if we want our own one we'll need to spend
£2000 - £3000.

Some of us can back up documents etc. on CDR/CDRW and it has been suggested
that we get an external USB DVD drive (the PC's are all Dell P4's with USB
2.0.) so it shouldn't be too slow to do this? Trouble is individual users
would have to remember to do this and incremental back-ups would present
some problems?

However, I was wondering if it would be feasible to set up a local PC/Server
which is networked to a group of local users?
I was thinking of an AMD PC (Opteron or AMD 64 or dual processors - not
Intel!) a RAID array (probably with 2+ 120 GB HDD's) and about 1 - 2 GB of
RAM - as a starting config?

Now our IT department are about as flexible as the average diamond I don't
think they'd even consider the above but I don't believe it wouldn't be
possible to store word documents and mail for less than £2000!

I should mention that I've never set up a server or a RAID system and do not
profess to be an expert . . . at anything!

TIA

BillL
Click to expand...
The need you describe sound like nothing that would require a server -- you
are not looking to "serve" anything, just to provide storage. For this job a
simple NAS (Network Attached Storage) unit should suffice. These come in all
manner of configurations and over a wide price range. One current
introduction is nothing more than an interface unit which connects to the
network an allows you to plug inexpensive USB external drives into it.
Others are in a single piece. One inexpensive example would be
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=352 but you can go from there up to units
with a hot-swappable RAID-5 SCSI array. But if it is simple small storage
you seek there seems no reason to dedicate a whole computer to the task.
 
BillL said:
Hi all

Please indulge my curiosity ;o)

Apologies if this rambles on a bit (should have posted *before* the red wine
;o) but how much would it cost to build a server for around 20 users? To
explain further I work in an office (local council in the UK) and we all
have our own letters and emails etc. on our local HDD's. We'd like to be
able to back up this information but the IT department have told us there is
no space on the servers and if we want our own one we'll need to spend
£2000 - £3000.

Some of us can back up documents etc. on CDR/CDRW and it has been suggested
that we get an external USB DVD drive (the PC's are all Dell P4's with USB
2.0.) so it shouldn't be too slow to do this? Trouble is individual users
would have to remember to do this and incremental back-ups would present
some problems?

However, I was wondering if it would be feasible to set up a local PC/Server
which is networked to a group of local users?
I was thinking of an AMD PC (Opteron or AMD 64 or dual processors - not
Intel!) a RAID array (probably with 2+ 120 GB HDD's) and about 1 - 2 GB of
RAM - as a starting config?

Now our IT department are about as flexible as the average diamond I don't
think they'd even consider the above but I don't believe it wouldn't be
possible to store word documents and mail for less than £2000!
Click to expand...
Why? You can do it for about £300. All you need is a computer running
Linux/Windows NT which needs about 512MB RAM. CPU speed is largely
irrelevent as the limiting factor in speed is network throughput so an
old P2/P3 is more than enough. Get yourself a SCSI array and a tape
streamer and bobs you're mothers brother.
 
BillL said:
However, I was wondering if it would be feasible to set up a local PC/Server
which is networked to a group of local users?
I was thinking of an AMD PC (Opteron or AMD 64 or dual processors - not
Intel!) a RAID array (probably with 2+ 120 GB HDD's) and about 1 - 2 GB of
RAM - as a starting config?

Now our IT department are about as flexible as the average diamond I don't
think they'd even consider the above but I don't believe it wouldn't be
possible to store word documents and mail for less than £2000!
Click to expand...

If all you need is a simple file server for 20 users, you can set this
up for less than £700. I run an old dual P2-300 system to share a
groupware suite for 55 users in my office, and it's just fine, though I
would not recommend such a crappy machine for a new purchase. An Athlon
64 or dual XP configuration (whichever you prefer) would be able to
handle this task without too much strain. I'd suggest a high quality
network card, of course, and 1GB of RAM (2 if funds allow). The RAID
array is a crucial part of this if you want good data security. Simply
buy two good-sized drives and mirror them in RAID-1. Additionally, you
might want to run a backup to DVD from time to time, since the writers
are so cheap and media isn't too bad either. Avoid too many peripherals
and services (Linux or XP Pro/2003 with unnecessary services disabled)
and don't be tempted to use the machine as a workstation for regular use
and you'll be in the clear. You don't need a powerful enterprise server
to pull this off unless you plan on doing a lot more with the server
than sharing Word files and storing email data, so the expense of an
Opteron solution isn't justified.

Configuring the machine for file sharing depends on your network setup
and whether your email client will allow storing the data on a network
volume. But either way, it's a good project to break up the normal
office routine for a day. Good luck!
 
On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 20:29:31 +0100, Conor wrote:
[snippage]
Why? You can do it for about £300. All you need is a computer running
Linux/Windows NT which needs about 512MB RAM. CPU speed is largely
irrelevent as the limiting factor in speed is network throughput so an
old P2/P3 is more than enough. Get yourself a SCSI array and a tape
streamer and bobs you're mothers brother.
Click to expand...

I agree that this is technically possible. I use samba on Sun Solaris
(another *nix similar to Linux) for file sharing to PCs. Much easier to do
mirroring (RAID1) and backup on shared files, than scattered PCs. If you
do it right, you could have the additional benefit of "location
transparency": you can log in to any PC and get your environment and home
directory. I do that with *nix. I think it is more work with Windows.

It sounds to me that you might have a serious (pending) political issue.
Is this a "power play" by your IT guys, or are they really overloaded and
overwhelmed, and therefore willing to allow you to do your own thing. They
might bristle and just wait for a screw up, so they can rain fire and
brimstone down on you, and use that as leverage to regain control?

They might be hedging because if they put in a cheap solution, and it
screws up, then they might lose their job(s)? What is included in the cost?

These sort of initiatives should ideally be proposed by the IT people. It
would be really good if they would buy into your proposal. Who is going to
support it? If it breaks, who fixes it? Who can fix it? Such questions.

Perhaps gather some info, prepare a proposal (discussion paper?) and take
it back to your IT guys and see if you can get them to buy into the idea
and work together with you on a practical solution. Good luck!
 
The need you describe sound like nothing that would require a server -- you
are not looking to "serve" anything, just to provide storage. For this job a
simple NAS (Network Attached Storage) unit should suffice. These come in all
manner of configurations and over a wide price range. One current
introduction is nothing more than an interface unit which connects to the
network an allows you to plug inexpensive USB external drives into it.
Others are in a single piece. One inexpensive example would be
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=352 but you can go from there up to units
with a hot-swappable RAID-5 SCSI array. But if it is simple small storage
you seek there seems no reason to dedicate a whole computer to the task.
Click to expand...


ISTM that you should take the 2K you've got in budget and tell the IT
department to spend it on disk space on their servers, but maybe
you've already tried that.
 
BillL said:
Some of us can back up documents etc. on CDR/CDRW and it has been suggested
that we get an external USB DVD drive (the PC's are all Dell P4's with USB
2.0.) so it shouldn't be too slow to do this? Trouble is individual users
would have to remember to do this and incremental back-ups would present some
problems?
Click to expand...

USB 2.0 and Firewire are both plenty fast for backups to external drives. After
installing it, making it available as a shared drive, and mapping it (or a
subdirectory of it) to each workstation, you might be able to devise a simple
batch file that will run on each workstation at the end of the day to
erase/rename the user's folder on the removable and copy his current data
folder. Something like:

DEL /F /S /Q N:\user\dataold\*.*
MOVE /Y N:\user\data\*.* N:\user\dataold\* *
COPY /V /Y d:\data\*.* N:\data\*.*
However, I was wondering if it would be feasible to set up a local PC/Server
which is networked to a group of local users?
I was thinking of an AMD PC (Opteron or AMD 64 or dual processors - not
Intel!) a RAID array (probably with 2+ 120 GB HDD's) and about 1 - 2 GB of
RAM - as a starting config?
Click to expand...

If it is only a file server, a single CPU with sufficient RAM (1 or 2 GB) should
be sufficient. Use RAID 1 for data safety or RAID 5 for safety + performance.
You will still want to backup the server regularly.
Now our IT department are about as flexible as the average diamond I don't
think they'd even consider the above but I don't believe it wouldn't be
possible to store word documents and mail for less than £2000!

I should mention that I've never set up a server or a RAID system and do not
profess to be an expert . . . at anything!
Click to expand...

It's not that difficult. You can muddle through it!
 
" Now our IT department are about as flexible as the average diamond I
don't think they'd even consider the above but I don't believe it wouldn't
be possible to store word documents and mail for less than £2000! "


Are you spending tax-payers money on storage for your work-residing porn?
 
Listen to your IT department. It is far more complicated than you realize
to accomplish what you are asking.
 
Juhan said:
On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 20:29:31 +0100, Conor wrote:
[snippage]
Why? You can do it for about £300. All you need is a computer running
Linux/Windows NT which needs about 512MB RAM. CPU speed is largely
irrelevent as the limiting factor in speed is network throughput so an
old P2/P3 is more than enough. Get yourself a SCSI array and a tape
streamer and bobs you're mothers brother.
Click to expand...


I agree that this is technically possible. I use samba on Sun Solaris
(another *nix similar to Linux) for file sharing to PCs. Much easier todo
mirroring (RAID1) and backup on shared files, than scattered PCs. If you
do it right, you could have the additional benefit of "location
transparency": you can log in to any PC and get your environment and home
directory. I do that with *nix. I think it is more work with Windows.

It sounds to me that you might have a serious (pending) political issue.
Is this a "power play" by your IT guys, or are they really overloaded and
overwhelmed, and therefore willing to allow you to do your own thing. They
might bristle and just wait for a screw up, so they can rain fire and
brimstone down on you, and use that as leverage to regain control?

They might be hedging because if they put in a cheap solution, and it
screws up, then they might lose their job(s)? What is included in the cost?

These sort of initiatives should ideally be proposed by the IT people. It
would be really good if they would buy into your proposal.

Who is going to
support it? If it breaks, who fixes it? Who can fix it? Such questions.
Click to expand...

This is probably where their cost came from. They probably have a
'standard', or close to it, server configuration(s) and if someone wants a
server then that's what it'll be because they're familiar with it, same
parts, same training, etc.
 
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