Networking Newbie with questions

[rotteneggz]

[H]ello people,

If have a small home business with approx 4 people that use computers and need to access a quickbooks company file and other documents. At the beginning, i used a computer to host all files/quickbooks and used workgroups to share the files and folders to all the computers. After 8 months i decided to update the network config and add a dedicated file server to host all shared documents. The computer i got was an old workstation dell precision 650 with these specs:
Processor Intel Xeon 2.4 GHz
Chipset Intel E7505
Installed Memory 512 MB
Operating System Microsoft Windows Server 2003
HDD 36Gb Scsi Drive & 160gb IDE Driver

I use the Scsi drive for the quickbook files and the ide for other file storage/shares.
This file server is connected to a dlink router which links all computers together.
The problem i am faceing is that quickbook access is REALLY slow and so is other file and folder usage on the file server.
Now on to my questions:

1) Is a domain server faster then useing workgroups or does it just give more functionality to the server as admins?

2) I am about to add a smoothwall box to replace the dlink router, and a procurve 1700 switch. Will this addition help speed up the transfer and access of files on the server?

3) Does the network need internet connection? Or can the network work without the internet?

4) One of the computer in the network is haveing trouble accessing files on the file server. Primarily audio files. For some reason it is cutting the audio on playback when they run perfectly fine on the other computers on the network. What can the problem be? Does it have something to do with data integrity? if so how can i test that?

Thanks

Rotteneggz

 

[marley1]

well going from a dlink router to a linux box + new switch may help. reason being is the router is probably 10/100 whereas the switch you may get will be gig speeds. so you can upgrade each computer with a gig nic and they would have faster networking.

you dont even need that linux firewall, if you just add a gig switch after the router and gig nics in all the computer you are doing the same thing.

you dont need a internet connection for what you are doing, but kinda pointless not to have one (windows updates, quickbook updates, etc).

 

[marley1]

also could just be limitation on the fileserver, a real server isnt a desktop with server 2003, you need some kind of redundancy for hard drives and such.

what mite benefit you is either a raid1 or a raid5 array in that desktop. how much data we talking bout? you can grab 2 sata drives in raid1 for fairly cheap, or you could pick up another 36gb scsi and run raid1 with that and just have another drive for the system.

 

[rotteneggz]

also could just be limitation on the fileserver, a real server isnt a desktop with server 2003, you need some kind of redundancy for hard drives and such.

what mite benefit you is either a raid1 or a raid5 array in that desktop. how much data we talking bout? you can grab 2 sata drives in raid1 for fairly cheap, or you could pick up another 36gb scsi and run raid1 with that and just have another drive for the system.

Well, i somewhat now about raid setups for hard drives but how would that help with makeing file access faster? I thought raid was for file backup and such. The switch has online one gig port from what i know of. I also want some QoS from the router so that is why i am going with a linux based one for the voip lines i will be installing.
What about the computer with the audio problems / super slow file transfer and access from the server?
Can you guys point me to some books i can read for networking and/or windows server if needed? I'd like to learn more about this.

 

[sdotbrucato]

There are primarily two different types of RAID.

Mirroring (Data Redundancy, two drives, one image)
Striping (Performance) tqo seperate drives, partial images of the files on each.

For performance I'd go with a RAID 0, but since this is business files as well, RAID 1 is where I'd be.

As far as the streaming issues, check the cables from machine to switch, check firewalls, and other network settings.

Not too sure why, considering that most MP3s are ~4MB, and on a FastEthernet (100Mb) the file should be cached in no time, putting no strain for the audio.

Also it might be software issues, check codecs and things of those likes.

 

[exstyle]

First off grab some more ram, 512MB is not enough for server 2k3. I dont care what anyone says if you have users working on it get some more, 2Gb can be had for less than $100.

Next, quickbooks needs to be installed on the server as well if it is not already. This may be part of your speed issues, and it is also imperative to maintain the integrity of your data file.

The skipping on the one machine indicates that you don't have enough bandwidth between the two machines. Since this problem is only with one machine, I would inspect the cables, and then if you have an extra NIC available try swapping it in the machine with the problems. Although you are a little low on ram it should not affect file transfers that badly. You may have a bad NIC in that machine, and if thats the case it may be the culprit regarding your network speed issues.

As far as needing access to the internet, if you don't need internet access then, no the network does not. However it might be good to connect every once and a awhile and pull down your updates.