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Server PC for storage(Shared huge drive) How?

S

sram

[H]ard|Gawd
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I have about 30 PC's in a workgroup network that are sharing one 1TB drive in one of the machines. I want to dedicate one machine for storage and install the appropriate OS on it. But, I have no idea how to do it.

Now there is a SAN and a NAS, and file servers, bla bla bla......etc I'm confused and I need your help. What is the typical solution in such scenario?

Giving me some good links will be great also.


Many thanks.
 
The appropriate OS depends on what's installed on the other 30 machines, and possibly if they have some sort of centralized auth.

If they are using windows and AD, then you might stick with windows server of some type.
If they don't... well, answer that question first and we can go from there.
 
Most machines are using windows 7, some are using XP professional. I presume AD is active directory, right? I know because people mention it when they talk about such topics. But, I don't really have an idea of what it really does.

Centralized auth isn't there.

I can obtain windows 2008 server from one friend. He has several licenses.
 
For Windows Server 2008 you'd need a RAID card if you're planning more than five 2TB drives and/or want performance. Windows' RAID 5 software implementation is quite slow, and beyond five 2TB drives (10TB raw storage) RAID 5 is quite shaky.

Alternatively, if you don't want features specific to Windows, you can install a simple NAS operating system, like Openfiler (very easy to use), or better, FreeNAS (uses the excellent ZFS file system, easy to use, but not as pretty interface as OpenFiler); if your hardware is all Intel, or they're server/workstation (Xeon/Opteron), NexentaStor will also work. NexentaStor also supports Windows AD for centralized authentication and other stuff (permissions, etc), not sure about the others.

How about you give us full hardware specifications of the machine and tell us what you want it to do as a server?
 
The machine is HP ProLiant ML110 G6 Server. Xeon CPU with 2 500GB HD's in RAID0 and 4GB Ram. Modest Configuration I know. What I want to do with it? I'm not sure if I can answer this perfectly.

Like I said, we have 30 PC's linked in a workgroup and I want them to share data(exchange data you may say by accessing a shared drive). The current shared drive is just a USB powered 1TB drive connected to one machine which is acting like a server. Bad setup, right? I'm not into these things, that's why I'm asking about the standard and ideal setup for such needs.

What will make it more secure? What will make it easier to deal with viruses? What will make it easier to maintain? What will make it fast enough?

I'm willing to learn so guide me please. (I know RAID0 is a bad choice here, but you know I can modify the server machine as necessary.

Thanks.
 
Are you comfortable with any other OS other than Windows?
Is that HP ProLiant being used for anything other than sharing that USB drive? If so, can you dedicate another PC to doing only server duties?

To secure that network, you may want to set up an active directory. It'll also help simplify network maintainance a little bit.

At the very least, what you might need to do is:
1) Build/repurpose a PC solely for server duties.
2) Setup a RAID 1 array for the OS partition/drives so that the server will have some measure of uptime
3) Figure out if 1TB is more than enough for 30 users and continued data collection over the next year or two.
4) Also figure out if performance is a gonna be a huge factor here.
 
Danny Bui said:
Are you comfortable with any other OS other than Windows?

Little if Linux, but this shouldn't really be a problem. I'll just learn if necessary.

Is that HP ProLiant being used for anything other than sharing that USB drive? If so, can you dedicate another PC to doing only server duties?

The HP ProLiant isn't being used yet. The shared USB drive is now connected to one machine which is acting as if it is a server. The HP was bought to serve as a server.

To secure that network, you may want to set up an active directory. It'll also help simplify network maintainance a little bit.

That I don't know, where should start reading or practicing?

At the very least, what you might need to do is:
1) Build/repurpose a PC solely for server duties. Machine already bought
2) Setup a RAID 1 array for the OS partition/drives so that the server will have some measure of uptime. I'll just use one HD for OS and maybe use two 2TB drives in RAID 1 for redundancy.
3) Figure out if 1TB is more than enough for 30 users and continued data collection over the next year or two. 1 TB is appropriate.
4) Also figure out if performance is a gonna be a huge factor here.
Click to expand...
File access speed from the server you mean? Nope, not really a huge factor.


Can you please answer this for me: now if the server holding the files will be using different OS than the rest of the machines accessing the server, how is that ganna work? Different file system and different overall structure and it is ganna be okay to --for example-- open a file from the server, edit it and then save it again in the server's hard disk?


Thanks.
 
sram said:
Little if Linux, but this shouldn't really be a problem. I'll just learn if necessary.
Click to expand...
Yeah it is gonna be a problem since this is a business network where "Oops, I never learned that part about Linux yet" may be a job killer.
sram said:
That I don't know, where should start reading or practicing?
Click to expand...
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/ad-main.aspx
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Directory"]Active Directory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:A_help_portal.gif" class="image"><img alt="A help portal.gif" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/A_help_portal.gif"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/8/88/A_help_portal.gif[/ame]

sram said:
I'll just use one HD for OS and maybe use two 2TB drives in RAID 1 for redundancy.
Click to expand...
I highly recommend getting a second HDD for a RAID 1 array for the OS. That last thing anyone wants is the OS being unaccessible. So RAID 1 for the OS and RAID 1 for the data should be ok.

Also note that you should keep the that USB 1TB drive to serve as a backup.
sram said:
Can you please answer this for me: now if the server holding the files will be using different OS than the rest of the machines accessing the server, how is that ganna work? Different file system and different overall structure and it is ganna be okay to --for example-- open a file from the server, edit it and then save it again in the server's hard disk?
Click to expand...
If using a non-Windows OS, there's a lot of shared/file sharing protocols that allows Windows PCs read and write data on different file systems. In other words, yes it's gonna be OK to open a file on the server, edit it, and then save it again if the server OS is Linux and if the workstation is Windows.

Honestly dude, wait till someone more experienced than I am to help you. Or get a local IT guru to come out and help you. If anything PM YeOldStoneCat and/or marley1 and ask for advice on what they'd do in your situation. Make sure you give them the same info you gave me.
 
Honestly dude, wait till someone more experienced than I am to help you. Or get a local IT guru to come out and help you. If anything PM YeOldStoneCat and/or marley1 and ask for advice on what they'd do in your situation. Make sure you give them the same info you gave me.
Click to expand...

Do they visit this forum frequently? If so, they will see my post soon.
 
If it were me I would look into an older version of Freenas. ( I believe theres been a parting of ways of some of the dev team with it splitting into 2 offshoots so...... not really sure about the new version. 8 and above. ) But you also have to realize I have used it for a while now and its not my job on the line.

The pluses are 1. Its free 2. Its robust 3. its pretty user friendly 4. runs good on older hardware

The minuses are 1. its a new OS to you 2. limited hardware compatibility.

I think for you it may be worth looking into. I am running 0.7.1 Shere for a long time with no trouble. Its managed thru a WEBGUI and mine boots from a CD and keeps all settings on an old 128mb flash drive thats no longer large enough to be useable for much else. I have a backup CD burned and the original .iso file, and you also have the ability to back up the config file so you pretty much have all the bases covered as far as an OS dumping on you.

So, if it were me personally I would use Freenas V7 and invest in a 2 new 2 tb drive. I would make one of the drives for the NAS and another I would put in my personal PC I used at work. I would schedule a sync program between the 2 and call it a day.

Now suppose you had wanted to ALSO back up those 30 computers........... I would go WHS with 3 drives, all 2 Tb and enable duplication.

Good luck



edit : also, I agree about the Active Directory. 30 is quite a few users. And unfortunately I know absolutely nothing about AD other than its used on larger networks than I have, lol.
 
If you're trying to run a business, you're sort of at this point where you move from a home office style network [which sounds like what you have] to a small business style network.

Active Directory is a centralized authentication system; one place to tell every computer who has access and who does not have access. The main advantages it provides is it authenticates you automatically from windows machine to windows machine, provides automation for password changes, account lockouts, etc.

I would encourage you to work your way up to a more robust server machine, it sounds like a single disk failure could halt your operations pretty bad. You should investigate a system that centralizes authentication and provides disk redundancy [RAID mirroring]. You should also get a system that regularly and automatically backs up the important data.

If you don't know much about IT, you should probably get a consultant. I don't have many suggestions outside of the Minneapolis area, but you could look into something like angie's list maybe to find a consultant.

It gets expensive, quickly, but you can do it scrappy if you have too and it works okay.
 
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