Need help with self hosted cloud storage solution

[Windows7ge]

7 minutes ago, Bajantechnician said:

yeah, just get a synology or a qnap man. you can upgrade storage and upload through a link (on the synology as far as i know, had no experience on qnap) 

I don't know how big their company is but I wouldn't recommend a consumer grade NAS especially if the network requires AD. AD is commonly the responsibility of the networks storage server (Unless you get into really big businesses in which case some servers are dedicated to just AD or even managed routers can act as the AD host/controller).

 

leadeater might hop in and tell me just how much more complicated that can get but my point stands that a consumer NAS doesn't belong in a business.

[Bajantechnician]

8 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

I don't know how big their company is but I wouldn't recommend a consumer grade NAS especially if the network requires AD. AD is commonly the responsibility of the networks storage server (Unless you get into really big businesses in which case some servers are dedicated to just AD or even managed routers can act as the AD host/controller).

 

leadeater might hop in and tell me just how much more complicated that can get but my point stands that a consumer NAS doesn't belong in a business.

It supports raid and all that though, and it allows people to drop stuff in remotely. Whats AD?

[Mikensan]

4 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

I don't know how big their company is but I wouldn't recommend a consumer grade NAS especially if the network requires AD. AD is commonly the responsibility of the networks storage server (Unless you get into really big businesses in which case some servers are dedicated to just AD or even managed routers can act as the AD host/controller).

 

leadeater might hop in and tell me just how much more complicated that can get but my point stands that a consumer NAS doesn't belong in a business.

Synology like Dell and HP, offer solutions from home > small office > medium business > enterprise. You also shouldn't be hosting AD on a storage appliance in any environment outside of maybe a lab.

 

You also have to fit the business to the solution - he isn't a full time IT admin. He likely will not have time to support this system, so anything like FreeNAS or Windows+storage-spaces is a bad fit. Turnkey solutions are better for SOHO.

[Windows7ge]

3 minutes ago, Bajantechnician said:

It supports raid and all that though, and it allows people to drop stuff in remotely. Whats AD?

You've further proved my point as to why it's not a good idea for a business (at least the consumer models).

 

4 minutes ago, Mikensan said:

Synology like Dell and HP, offer solutions from home > small office > medium business > enterprise. You also shouldn't be hosting AD on a storage appliance in any environment outside of maybe a lab.

 

You also have to fit the business to the solution - he isn't a full time IT admin. He likely will not have time to support this system, so anything like FreeNAS or Windows+storage-spaces is a bad fit. Turnkey solutions are better for SOHO.

In this application what would you want handling AD? A dedicated server? I understand the concern if the network storage went down so would everyone's ability to login to their computers (quite frankly that might be why the prof & students alike can't login whenever we hear the storage servers are down).

 

He hasn't actually told us how big the business is so it's currently hard to gauge what specific equipment is recommended. I'm recommending things I think should be easy enough to pick up over a short period of time. Unless you feel storage spaces in general is bad for a business in terms of reliability.

 

I'm not familiar with Turnkey but a quick search says they have to do with laying private fiber for network solutions?

Unfortunately it seems like OP confused "cloud storage" with just needing a new local server for the network.

Quote

no, hosted by ourself, not even off-site. just a pc in a closet running 24/7.

I don't know if Turnkey helps with setting up local network storage.

[Bajantechnician]

2 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

~Snip~

 

whats AD?

[Windows7ge]

Just now, Bajantechnician said:

whats AD?

Active Directory. Domain if you will. Have you ever been in a school or office and have to input a username & password to use their computer? That is a Domain. Your credentials are held on a server either locally or remotely and as you login a query is sent to the server. If you're in the list. You're granted access and allowed permission to use the computer and given certain permissions to access network resources. Your access to the Internet can also be controlled & tracked/monitored (I do believe that is another application doing that though).

[Bajantechnician]

2 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

Active Directory. Domain if you will. Have you ever been in a school or office and have to input a username & password to use their computer? That is a Domain. Your credentials are held on a server either locally or remotely and as you login a query is sent to the server. If you're in the list. You're granted access and allowed permission to use the computer and given certain permissions to access network resources. Your access to the Internet can also be controlled & tracked/monitored (I do believe that is another application doing that though).

Ahhh, so a permissions login sort of thing. Synology has that built in. Heres mine: http://eeiean.quickconnect.to

 

*edit: kidding, i turned it off this morn

*edit2: kidding, it was just on sleep mode. Me opening the link sent it a wake up query

[Mikensan]

14 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

You've further proved my point as to why it's not a good idea for a business (at least the consumer models).

 

In this application what would you want handling AD? A dedicated server? I understand the concern if the network storage went down so would everyone's ability to login to their computers (quite frankly that might be why the prof & students alike can't login whenever we hear the storage servers are down).

 

He hasn't actually told us how big the business is so it's currently hard to gauge what specific equipment is recommended. I'm recommending things I think should be easy enough to pick up over a short period of time. Unless you feel storage spaces in general is bad for a business in terms of reliability.

 

I'm not familiar with Turnkey but a quick search says they have to do with laying private fiber for network solutions?

Unfortunately it seems like OP confused "cloud storage" with just needing a new local server for the network.

I don't know if Turnkey helps with setting up local network storage.

Domain Controllers should always be a standalone instance. It can be virtual, or it can be physical - but yes dedicated. Beyond a single point of failure, it's bad practice to add more risks to your domain controller - it should have as few services running as possible. Ideally it is further isolated from the rest of the environment but that's out of scope for this thread.

 

You don't have to explicitly know how big his business is, he stated he isn't in IT. A company without either dedicated IT or a MSP doesn't warrant an expensive and complicated configuration.

 

A turnkey solution is one that works out of the box, no special configuration. In pratice you should be up and going within an hour and wtihout google. Any issues should be a phonecall to the vendor, not a google search for anyone like OP. Something breaks, he can point his finger to the vendor (good old "cover your ass").

[Windows7ge]

20 minutes ago, Mikensan said:

Domain Controllers should always be a standalone instance. It can be virtual, or it can be physical - but yes dedicated. Beyond a single point of failure, it's bad practice to add more risks to your domain controller - it should have as few services running as possible. Ideally it is further isolated from the rest of the environment but that's out of scope for this thread.

 

You don't have to explicitly know how big his business is, he stated he isn't in IT. A company without either dedicated IT or a MSP doesn't warrant an expensive and complicated configuration.

 

A turnkey solution is one that works out of the box, no special configuration. In pratice you should be up and going within an hour and wtihout google. Any issues should be a phonecall to the vendor, not a google search for anyone like OP. Something breaks, he can point his finger to the vendor (good old "cover your ass").

Fair enough. My reason for discussing the combination of the File Server & AD Controller is because of how common I hear & see it in small/medium sized businesses. I see people setting up their Windows Server with network storage for the clients and configuring AD. I have not set this up myself but it's good to learn what I see done so often isn't actually a good practice. Keep me from following the heard.

 

You saw something I failed to notice. You make a good point.

 

That's exactly why I was saying Dell or HPE. The good old CYA. If you know that TurnKey Solutions has options that are more cost effective than the former I'm all for saving OP a buck. Particularly if it's still user friendly enough for him. I'd still suggest it should be proper for the environment (such as not constructed with desktop grade hardware).

[Jarsky]

2 hours ago, Windows7ge said:

I don't know how big their company is but I wouldn't recommend a consumer grade NAS especially if the network requires AD. AD is commonly the responsibility of the networks storage server (Unless you get into really big businesses in which case some servers are dedicated to just AD or even managed routers can act as the AD host/controller).

 

leadeater might hop in and tell me just how much more complicated that can get but my point stands that a consumer NAS doesn't belong in a business.

 

Synology NAS for the most part are small business devices - especially since we'd be talking about 4+ bay higher end devices like the DS918+ and up. The consumer devices are generally tagged with 'j' or 'play'. They also both have AD integration and they can be an AD Server themselves. 

 

We use these in offices with 20-30 users for storage. 

 

I would argue that AD is not typically hosted on the storage server. In medium sized businesses storage should exclusively be storage. Typically for a robust AD for a medium company you want 2 AD servers in your forest for consistency, typically on different physical hosts. Your storage is generally seperate so you can do regular maintenance on your other servers (ESXi/Hyper-V etc..require updates too...) without taking down your storage. For a small business (e.g 20 people) then a device like this would be fine with a single controller, you just have to ensure that you do regular backups of the NTDS & SYSVOL.