Small Business NAS?

W

whatuusay1

n00bie
Joined
Dec 4, 2006
Messages
44
I'm looking to setup a small business customer of mine with a NAS, they're a graphics design company and they need a reasonable amount of network storage for the 6 current employees. I've certainly built small "servers" before to handle my fileshare needs at home and for friends but I'd like to make sure they get something supported and of good quality. Does anyone have some recommendations for a small business nas? I'd like to ensure its rack mountable - since they have a small rack and i'd rather keep them moving in the right direction regarding form factor etc. (I have businesses who have pcs stacked in the "server room".

Any ways - heres one i'm looking at. They run a SBS 2003 server so i want to make sure it'll handle active directory permissions.. if this inst a good choice does anyone have any recommendations? I figure I can load it up with 5-750GB drives initially and grow as necessary. They're a pretty small shop but have the potential to grow to 10-15 in the next 1-2 years. I've also setup a Dell power connect 2724 for network - anything that can take advantage of the gigabit network speed would be a plus :)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822110044

I've also looked at a few Linksys NAS rack mount NAS models but I've been burned by Link's tech support one to many times..

Thanks!
 
What's the budget mate ?

To be honest for a proper NAS for a business you should really be looking towards a proper file server appliance, e.g a proper server or maybe building a racmount server your self.

I'd recomend using either windows 2003 storage edition on the server or maybe freenas or a cheap linux/freebsd solution like that. Ive used freenas before, it plays well with active directory but not as well as a windows server.

Have you thought about setting up a SAN and using the SBS server as the file server but using another server as a target ? Or even using some sort of DAS appliance and hooking it up to the SBS server.

If they do graphics design and things like that, i think speed might be a priority and so is space. Those cheapy NAS's arent as fast as a full blown server, trust me on that! And i dont think that appliance will play too nice with active diretory either.
 
Here is a good reference for Nas Reviews. Small Net Builder

He has very in depth reviews, and a good charts section to compare the performance of the device you are looking at to other units.

Make sure you provide your client with a reliable and easy backup solution for their data also. Even a Raid 1 NAS, like my Hammer Storage Myshare requires a separate backup in case of virus infection or accidental deletion of a file.

Don
 
Thanks guys - I'll check out those reviews. My (the customers) budget is around 2k (hardware) and another $500 for me to install / configure it. I figure he should be able to get 1-2 TB worth of raided storage for that. I typically recommend mozy (http://www.mozy.com) for backups although at 2TB it's going to be expensive :) any sort of backup is going to get expensive for 2TB though.
 
Stupid question but why not just have the sbsbox handle it?

Either throw the hard drives in it with their own raid card or use an external esata box(as sas will prob be too expensive)

Another option would be something like the PowerVault NF100 from dell but it is not rack mount. The rackmount ones are a good bit more expensive but you might find one from another vendor.
 
/up on soapbox/ For a business, properly backing up data should be factored in as a cost of doing business. For instance, what would happen if someone broke in and stole their server? What would it cost them to recreate the data stored on the server from scratch? Fire, lightning strike, or just plain bad luck. These things happen every day and SHOULD be planned for. /off of soapbox/

Hey, please let us know what you decide to do and how it works out.

Thanks

Don
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top