What server-"typ" to get for an "all MAC company"

[Frownwarrior]

Hey folks

So first, I did not know how to title this topic. Second, I worked in IT; I have a Formation in it as a System engineer. However, since a few years I work in insurance and did not worked in IT since then. (Just that you know, I know some stuff, but I'm kind of out of date at the Software part)

 

Back to the Topic.

 My fiancée works in a small advertising company (about 15 ppl). They all use MAC Clients and iPads of different ages for their work. They use a normal Synology NAS and call it "server". They work all at the same time DIRECTLY FROM IT! (It kind of makes my cry) Of course, they have all kinds of problem with it. Sometimes it is overheating so they installed an AC just to cool the NAS. (Funny side note: the office is in an old building, where it is not allowed to change something at the buildings and its outside walls. Therefor the AC is installed inside, and all the hot exhaust air goes in the toilet. That was there best option. Now in the summer, you have on the toilet over 50°C, about 122 Freedomheit.) When the NAS does a backup to an external PC (somewhere) it takes ages and they cannot work. They have an external IT dude that handles all the PC problems and did set up everything. Nevertheless, that guy is a total ass. (Sorry for that). Like last week, my fiancée tried to set up a new iPad for the new employee. She got the mail account information form that IT dude. Like password, server name etc. she could not set the mail account up and called him. He just blamed her for 10 min that she enters the password wrong. (This is word for word how he said it to her) "If you are a dumb women, who can't enter a password right, it's not my fault or problem," She told him that she did as written by him. Turns out. The IT dude send her the wrong password.

 

That IT dude is unable to solve their problems like synchronize all the calendars or update the OS of the clients. Their worked on a 4-year-old MAC OS version until last week. He finally updated the clients (manually one after another, during working hours) because Adobe was giving them a message that they cannot use Adobes service anymore on old OS.

All this makes me mad, because they pay him a lot and he is doing nothing.

 

Therefore, this is why I am here.

 

I want to set up a proper server. With enough power, so all the clients can work form it. They rarely use premiere or after effects. Most is done in Illustrator and InDesign. I want to be able to preload an update on the server and then distribute to all clients. It should be possible to have a "master client" that can access all others so if a coworker forgot to upload the file on the server; they still can get it from his client.

The main goal is to have a proper working network and system for them. Like it should be.

 

1. Do you people have experience in servers with MAC Clients?
2. What Server OS do you recommend, and what Hardware.

 

My experience are mostly in windows server 2012, but I do not think that this will be a good fit.

I have rarely used a MAC PC, but I am sure that I can learn it quickly.

 

This is a long text, and I am sorry for that, also my English is not that good, but I hope it is enough to explain for what I am looking.

 

Thank you

[kdawwgg1221]

5 minutes ago, Frownwarrior said:

• Do you people have experience in servers with MAC Clients?
• What Server OS do you recommend, and what Hardware.

Obviously there is the classic Ubuntu OS from linux. Fairly specified OS for server services. I am sure 10 gigabit networking is out of the question? I mean what is the budget the company is spending to have this server upgraded or replaced?

[Frownwarrior]

10 minutes ago, kdawwgg1221 said:

Obviously there is the classic Ubuntu OS from linux. Fairly specified OS for server services. I am sure 10 gigabit networking is out of the question? I mean what is the budget the company is spending to have this server upgraded or replaced?

Okay, whats about Apple Server OS ? is it any good ?

 

I'm not sure, I think some clients are 1-2 years old, they have 10gig nics but my guess is that the majority is 1. 

 

They don't really have a budget. They are to affraid to switch to a new IT guy, because their infrastructur magically works and they don't want to risk a long down time. that is why I want to get as many Information and knoledge as I can, so that I can make them an offer. I guess by  the size of the company i would say budget is 10k max. for Hardware and software.

[kdawwgg1221]

2 minutes ago, Frownwarrior said:

Okay, whats about Apple Server OS ? is it any good ?

I would never suggest Apple's OS in any circumstance unless you have a 21 year old white girl running server operations. (It's a joke...). Ubuntu Server is fairly resourceful but Windows just released the Server 2019 OS and they are fairly User-Friendly. How much storage is optimal for the office?

[Frownwarrior]

I don't know it by heart. If I remember right it is a 4 bay NAS so i guess they have about 10-20TB ?  What I want to set up too, is a FTP service. They use WeTransfer to send clients the fils and sometimes it is really slow, or some company can not use it. 

[kdawwgg1221]

1 minute ago, Frownwarrior said:

I don't know it by heart. If I remember right it is a 4 bay NAS so i guess they have about 10-20TB ?  What I want to set up too, is a FTP service. They use WeTransfer to send clients the fils and sometimes it is really slow, or some company can not use it. 

I think windows server will do you just fine. It's a familiar UI for the most part and FTP is basic services offered by any server OS.

I am going to put together 4 bays and send you pictures of pricing and hardware.

[dalekphalm]

52 minutes ago, Frownwarrior said:

I don't know it by heart. If I remember right it is a 4 bay NAS so i guess they have about 10-20TB ?  What I want to set up too, is a FTP service. They use WeTransfer to send clients the fils and sometimes it is really slow, or some company can not use it. 

You're going to want to collect the following information:

1. How much storage do they currently have? In what configuration? (RAID level, etc), with what capacity and quantity of HDD's?

2. What is their projected storage growth on a yearly basis? How much data do they add each year.

3. What's the off-site server? Where is it? How much are they paying for it? Who owns it?

 

Honestly, a Synology NAS is not a bad route to go - they might just need a beefier one. Frankly, even if they're working right off the NAS, InDesign and Illustrator files are pretty small. You could try running an X-Serve server (Mac Server), but Apple doesn't even sell the hardware anymore, and I don't think they even support the server OS anymore either.

 

Main things I'd do is:

1. Make sure you've got enough storage for growth

2. Add a 10Gbit backbone switch (if budget allows) - connect any of the Mac clients that have 10Gig directly to it, along with the server/NAS (bonus points if the Server/NAS has 10Gig too) - this is entirely optional though, as 1 Gig network should still be perfectly serviceable.

 

I wouldn't necessarily use a Windows server with Macs. It can work, but it won't be ideal.

 

Instead, I would use Synology or something similar, use the LDAP service to have a directory based User Account system. To do the fine-tune controls (Mac version of GPO's), you're going to want to use an MDM (Mobile Device Management), there are tons of them (Meraki, Jamf, AirWatch, etc).

 

Also I would buy 2 identical NAS's (or maybe repurpose the existing one) to have an on-site backup. Make sure it's a backup, and not just a sync/mirror. Synology has out of the box software that can handle all of that. Also configure the backup to run overnight, so it doesn't affect users.

[Frownwarrior]

15 hours ago, kdawwgg1221 said:

I think windows server will do you just fine. It's a familiar UI for the most part and FTP is basic services offered by any server OS.

I am going to put together 4 bays and send you pictures of pricing and hardware.

Thank you, thats very nice. 

[Frownwarrior]

14 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

You're going to want to collect the following information:

1. How much storage do they currently have? In what configuration? (RAID level, etc), with what capacity and quantity of HDD's?

2. What is their projected storage growth on a yearly basis? How much data do they add each year.

3. What's the off-site server? Where is it? How much are they paying for it? Who owns it?

 

Honestly, a Synology NAS is not a bad route to go - they might just need a beefier one. Frankly, even if they're working right off the NAS, InDesign and Illustrator files are pretty small. You could try running an X-Serve server (Mac Server), but Apple doesn't even sell the hardware anymore, and I don't think they even support the server OS anymore either.

 

Main things I'd do is:

1. Make sure you've got enough storage for growth

2. Add a 10Gbit backbone switch (if budget allows) - connect any of the Mac clients that have 10Gig directly to it, along with the server/NAS (bonus points if the Server/NAS has 10Gig too) - this is entirely optional though, as 1 Gig network should still be perfectly serviceable.

 

I wouldn't necessarily use a Windows server with Macs. It can work, but it won't be ideal.

 

Instead, I would use Synology or something similar, use the LDAP service to have a directory based User Account system. To do the fine-tune controls (Mac version of GPO's), you're going to want to use an MDM (Mobile Device Management), there are tons of them (Meraki, Jamf, AirWatch, etc).

 

Also I would buy 2 identical NAS's (or maybe repurpose the existing one) to have an on-site backup. Make sure it's a backup, and not just a sync/mirror. Synology has out of the box software that can handle all of that. Also configure the backup to run overnight, so it doesn't affect users.

thanky you vrey much for your in-depth answere. I will ask my gf if she can send me some specs or model numbers. I don't know how the higher-end synology NAS are, but I remember that most of them use a like 1GHz ARM processor or something like that. and I think with a server with a proper Server OS I could do more for them. Add all Clients to a Domain, sync the appointments and mails/data and stuff like that. 

 

I will check out some synology Options and the Software you mention for MDM. 

 

This is why I love this formum. everyone is nice and trys to help

[Frownwarrior]

Okay I got some infromations. 

The newest iMac that they use, is the iMac late 2015. Therefor I don't think they have a 10gig Backbone. 

The NAS has 18 TB storage and 4TB is left. It was set up in 2014. I don't think that they added more drive to it. So my guess ist that they use about 3-4TB/year of space. 

If I will upgrade, I guess I would go for 30-40TB in RAID 10 with 8 disks. 

What do you think? I think HDD is okay, since Raid 10 gives good performance. or should I go all SSD ? And only do a RAID 5 /6 ? or a mix between SSD and HDD. If I would build a Server I could use a m.2 as caching, or is that way over the top? It is hard for me to figure it out, since I worked only in large company where we used to have PB of storage......

 

EDIT: okay, HOLY I didn't know it was that bad. the network to the nas, is only 100mbit ......

Okay now i got a Picture of the NAS, I was wrong, it is not a Synology, ist worse. It is a Promise Pegasus R6. It has only thunderbolt 2 connection. So they have an Adapter from TB2 -> Ethernet. The Adapter is able to deliver 10G Speeds, but the Clients are only connected via 100mbit... maybe it makes sense to get some TB->RJ45 1/10G Adapters for the clients. and get e better NAS/Server for them. 

 

 

 

[dalekphalm]

7 hours ago, Frownwarrior said:

thanky you vrey much for your in-depth answere. I will ask my gf if she can send me some specs or model numbers. I don't know how the higher-end synology NAS are, but I remember that most of them use a like 1GHz ARM processor or something like that. and I think with a server with a proper Server OS I could do more for them. Add all Clients to a Domain, sync the appointments and mails/data and stuff like that. 

Only the lower end models have ARM CPU's. You can get models all the way up to Xeon server CPU's. Which, frankly, is overkill for a glorified file server. You need something in between. One of the higher end ARM CPU's, or a middle of the road x86.

 

Synology's operating system has LDAP, which is the "open source" version of Windows Active Directory Domain Services. You can almost certainly already do this with the existing NAS.

 

Syncing appointments and calendars etc can be handled by almost any system. There are so many options there. How is their mail provided? Do they have a local mail server? If so, what kind of mail server? Are they running cloud email (Gmail, O365, etc)?

7 hours ago, Frownwarrior said:

I will check out some synology Options and the Software you mention for MDM. 

 

This is why I love this formum. everyone is nice and trys to help

Using an MDM is really the only way you can properly manage Mac computers anymore, so you're gonna need an MDM pretty much either way, if you want a proper setup. Some MDM's can be hosted locally, but most are cloud based.

5 hours ago, Frownwarrior said:

Okay I got some infromations. 

The newest iMac that they use, is the iMac late 2015. Therefor I don't think they have a 10gig Backbone. 

The NAS has 18 TB storage and 4TB is left. It was set up in 2014. I don't think that they added more drive to it. So my guess ist that they use about 3-4TB/year of space. 

If I will upgrade, I guess I would go for 30-40TB in RAID 10 with 8 disks. 

Keep in mind that you lose half your storage with RAID10. That's not a bad thing, but it does make things more expensive. If you can afford 60-80TB of HDD's, then go for it. Otherwise, RAID6 is still perfectly acceptable. Don't do RAID5 in a business environment anymore. There's really no point, and the risk is too large.

5 hours ago, Frownwarrior said:

What do you think? I think HDD is okay, since Raid 10 gives good performance. or should I go all SSD ? And only do a RAID 5 /6 ? or a mix between SSD and HDD. If I would build a Server I could use a m.2 as caching, or is that way over the top? It is hard for me to figure it out, since I worked only in large company where we used to have PB of storage......

Don't bother with SSD's, or an m.2 cache. Entirely a waste of time when all they're doing is manipulating Illustrator documents, etc.

 

Do make sure to select good quality HDD's. WD Red Pro would be the minimum I suggest. Or actual Enterprise drives, if the budget allows.

5 hours ago, Frownwarrior said:

 

EDIT: okay, HOLY I didn't know it was that bad. the network to the nas, is only 100mbit ......

That's almost certainly the culprit for the NAS slowdown.

 

Step one is to upgrade the network to 1Gigabit, immediately. You'll need to check 3 things:

1. What Network adapter (NIC) every device is using. Make sure they're at least using a Gigabit NIC.

2. What cable is being used: Minimum Cat5e. If you've already got Cat5e, don't bother replacing it. If they have Cat5 (non-e), I'd replace with Cat 6a.

5 hours ago, Frownwarrior said:

Okay now i got a Picture of the NAS, I was wrong, it is not a Synology, ist worse. It is a Promise Pegasus R6.

From looking at the specs, it looks like an actual Mac server. Back in the day, might have been very capable. Unfortunately, Apple has been removing most of the useful features of Mac Server OS and moving them to the Apple Push API (MDM's). There's very little specs listed on their site other than basic capabilities.

 

Replacing this with a mid-range 8-bay off the shelf Synology (Or QNAP) would be an upgrade, frankly.

5 hours ago, Frownwarrior said:

It has only thunderbolt 2 connection. So they have an Adapter from TB2 -> Ethernet. The Adapter is able to deliver 10G Speeds, but the Clients are only connected via 100mbit... maybe it makes sense to get some TB->RJ45 1/10G Adapters for the clients. and get e better NAS/Server for them. 

-snip-

 

[Frownwarrior]

38 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Only the lower end models have ARM CPU's. You can get models all the way up to Xeon server CPU's. Which, frankly, is overkill for a glorified file server. You need something in between. One of the higher end ARM CPU's, or a middle of the road x86.

okay. Thank you for the informations. They told me, that they planning to try to make more video projects in the futur. I don't know if they would benefit form a "high-end" PC system with a good CPU/GPU so that they can render on it. I think for the start a better NAS/ storage server will be good.

 

38 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

 

Synology's operating system has LDAP, which is the "open source" version of Windows Active Directory Domain Services. You can almost certainly already do this with the existing NAS.

Thats cool. I did not read into it,yet. But is it possible to preload updates and then send it to all clients ? There IT guys manually updates every Client separately. I think thats just a waste of time and money. specially because he does it during normal working houers, so everytime at least someone cannot work at all.

 

38 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Syncing appointments and calendars etc can be handled by almost any system. There are so many options there. How is their mail provided? Do they have a local mail server? If so, what kind of mail server? Are they running cloud email (Gmail, O365, etc)?

They have a provider hosted mail solution. VTXMail. I think they are a local company. 

Well I think syncing appointmets should be an easy task, but their IT dude told them it is impossible, "there is nothing he can do." 

 

38 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Using an MDM is really the only way you can properly manage Mac computers anymore, so you're gonna need an MDM pretty much either way, if you want a proper setup. Some MDM's can be hosted locally, but most are cloud based.

Keep in mind that you lose half your storage with RAID10. That's not a bad thing, but it does make things more expensive. If you can afford 60-80TB of HDD's, then go for it. Otherwise, RAID6 is still perfectly acceptable. Don't do RAID5 in a business environment anymore. There's really no point, and the risk is too large.

Don't bother with SSD's, or an m.2 cache. Entirely a waste of time when all they're doing is manipulating Illustrator documents, etc.

 

Do make sure to select good quality HDD's. WD Red Pro would be the minimum I suggest. Or actual Enterprise drives, if the budget allows.

That's almost certainly the culprit for the NAS slowdown.

I'm aware that with RAID10 I dont get the full capacity I don't know hardware priceses in other countrys but here, 8*8TB Seaget Ironwolf SATA HDD would cost about CHF 2000.- so about 1970$ or so. So thats not that bad. and if my math is right, in RAID 10 that should be about 32TB, right ?

 

38 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

 

Step one is to upgrade the network to 1Gigabit, immediately. You'll need to check 3 things:

1. What Network adapter (NIC) every device is using. Make sure they're at least using a Gigabit NIC.

2. What cable is being used: Minimum Cat5e. If you've already got Cat5e, don't bother replacing it. If they have Cat5 (non-e), I'd replace with Cat 6a.

From looking at the specs, it looks like an actual Mac server. Back in the day, might have been very capable. Unfortunately, Apple has been removing most of the useful features of Mac Server OS and moving them to the Apple Push API (MDM's). There's very little specs listed on their site other than basic capabilities.

 

Replacing this with a mid-range 8-bay off the shelf Synology (Or QNAP) would be an upgrade, frankly.

 

yeah I think an upgrade to 1G would be allready a good thing to do. I know that not long ago my finacée told me that they bought "internet cables" and that they were "super expansive" because they baugth "the best one". when I asked her about the type or the price, she couldn't  say anything xD. So therefor I will visit her next week in the office and check the things out, like network backbone, what typs of switches, router, and clients and AP they have. 

[dalekphalm]

13 minutes ago, Frownwarrior said:

okay. Thank you for the informations. They told me, that they planning to try to make more video projects in the futur. I don't know if they would benefit form a "high-end" PC system with a good CPU/GPU so that they can render on it. I think for the start a better NAS/ storage server will be good.

I would recommend not doing rendering on the server itself. You can, but it requires significantly more planning, adds a lot of complexity, and lastly, will increase the required budget exponentially.

 

They're better off rendering locally on their Mac, and then just sending the finished file over to the file shares.

Quote

Thats cool. I did not read into it,yet. But is it possible to preload updates and then send it to all clients ? There IT guys manually updates every Client separately. I think thats just a waste of time and money. specially because he does it during normal working houers, so everytime at least someone cannot work at all.

This is something the MDM would handle. Jamf, for example:

https://www.jamf.com/solutions/technologies/apple-os-upgrades/

 

Also have a look at this - these are Mac OS Admin tools that might be useful (Note I'm not familiar with any of them):

https://simplemdm.com/features/

 

Quote

They have a provider hosted mail solution. VTXMail. I think they are a local company. 

Well I think syncing appointmets should be an easy task, but their IT dude told them it is impossible, "there is nothing he can do." 

When you say "syncing appointments", can you be specific as to what exactly they want to do? They should be able to share a calendar or multiple calendars easily, and any appointments on said calendar. They might be better off using Google Calendar if their current provider lacks these features.

Quote

I'm aware that with RAID10 I dont get the full capacity I don't know hardware priceses in other countrys but here, 8*8TB Seaget Ironwolf SATA HDD would cost about CHF 2000.- so about 1970$ or so. So thats not that bad. and if my math is right, in RAID 10 that should be about 32TB, right ?

8x 8TB = 64TB

In RAID10, yes, that would be 32GB of usable space (minus losses from conversion into GiB, of course).

 

Ironwolf drives are pretty good. I wouldn't buy anything lower end then that though.

Quote

yeah I think an upgrade to 1G would be allready a good thing to do. I know that not long ago my finacée told me that they bought "internet cables" and that they were "super expansive" because they baugth "the best one". when I asked her about the type or the price, she couldn't  say anything xD. So therefor I will visit her next week in the office and check the things out, like network backbone, what typs of switches, router, and clients and AP they have. 

Yes. You need to make sure every device in the stream has Gigabit capability. That includes all NIC's, all Ethernet cables (Cat5e minimum), all switches, and the router (or L3 switch).

 

The only thing that doesn't matter is the WAN port on your Gateway/Modem/Router. The WAN port simply needs to be fast enough to support whatever internet connection you have (Eg: If you have 100 Mbps or less Internet speed, a 10/100 port is fine - if you have Internet above 100 Mbps, you'll need a Gigabit WAN port). But, none of that would affect internal LAN speeds anyway, even if the WAN port is too slow.

[Frownwarrior]

 

15 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

This is something the MDM would handle. Jamf, for example:

https://www.jamf.com/solutions/technologies/apple-os-upgrades/

15 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

 

Also have a look at this - these are Mac OS Admin tools that might be useful (Note I'm not familiar with any of them):

https://simplemdm.com/features/

Thanky you for all the provided links.

 

15 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

 

When you say "syncing appointments", can you be specific as to what exactly they want to do? They should be able to share a calendar or multiple calendars easily, and any appointments on said calendar. They might be better off using Google Calendar if their current provider lacks these Features.

They use the Standard Calender & Mail app on iOS and on the Clients they use Outlook for Mails and Appels Calender for appointments. And ist really annoying that they can not sync  there appointments between the divices and the other Team members.

 

15 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

8x 8TB = 64TB

In RAID10, yes, that would be 32GB of usable space (minus losses from conversion into GiB, of course).

 

Ironwolf drives are pretty good. I wouldn't buy anything lower end then that though.

Yes. You need to make sure every device in the stream has Gigabit capability. That includes all NIC's, all Ethernet cables (Cat5e minimum), all switches, and the router (or L3 switch).

 

The only thing that doesn't matter is the WAN port on your Gateway/Modem/Router. The WAN port simply needs to be fast enough to support whatever internet connection you have (Eg: If you have 100 Mbps or less Internet speed, a 10/100 port is fine - if you have Internet above 100 Mbps, you'll need a Gigabit WAN port). But, none of that would affect internal LAN speeds anyway, even if the WAN port is too slow.

Yeah I have to check first there network and gear. After that i can make maybe a proposal to them, or so. 

[dalekphalm]

13 hours ago, Frownwarrior said:

They use the Standard Calender & Mail app on iOS and on the Clients they use Outlook for Mails and Appels Calender for appointments. And ist really annoying that they can not sync  there appointments between the divices and the other Team members.

I'd question why they're using such a mishmash of different software for the same thing.

 

I would standardize on a Calendar/Mail application. If they use Outlook on the Mac's, why not use Outlook on iOS?

 

I would also suggest using a Google Calendar for stuff like appointments, etc. You can create as many calendars as you want. You can then interact with the calendar either using the iOS Calendar app, or the Calendar tab in Outlook. You just need to add said calendar to the system/app.

 

Google Calendars allow you to easily invite others with share or view permissions, etc, and you can use whatever Calendar app you want to manage it (though of course some functions will require you to go to the Google site and login, but only rarely).

[happymax1212]

Perhaps a Mac mini 2018 with Core i3/i5 and 10G Ethernet? Connect it to some thunderbolt drive bay. That should be sufficient, and running macOS means it can support apple file sharing protocols. Or the core i7 model, if they need some video rendering performance. 

I wouldn’t recommend macOS server though, that software isn’t going to be supported or updated in the future. But macOS itself is sufficient for your need. 

[Frownwarrior]

I still had no time to visit  the office and checkout the Hardware. But my gf send me a picture of the cables. All are cat. 6a. so thats good so far. What I find interssting, is that in her first screenshot, she had a  100M Connection, but when she checked again, it was 1000. so for some reason the network is swiching speeds. 

[dalekphalm]

3 hours ago, Frownwarrior said:

I still had no time to visit  the office and checkout the Hardware. But my gf send me a picture of the cables. All are cat. 6a. so thats good so far. What I find interssting, is that in her first screenshot, she had a  100M Connection, but when she checked again, it was 1000. so for some reason the network is swiching speeds. 

I’d guess a bad cable or poorly terminated ends, if she’s switching speeds. That’s assuming the nic itself is working correctly. 

[Pixel5]

honestly after all reading all this stuff id say for an office like this that clearly has no idea how to operate any IT system getting a good Synology NAS is probably a really good solution as its easy to run and will give them similar speeds as they would get with a custom system as long as they stay with 1gbit/s connections.

 

i would get a switch that supports link aggregation and connect everyone to that switch, that way you can get up to 2gbit/s out of the NAS while everyone will only get 1gbit/s for himself max this reduces bottlenecks without a total network overhaul.

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, Pixel5 said:

honestly after all reading all this stuff id say for an office like this that clearly has no idea how to operate any IT system getting a good Synology NAS is probably a really good solution as its easy to run and will give them similar speeds as they would get with a custom system as long as they stay with 1gbit/s connections.

 

i would get a switch that supports link aggregation and connect everyone to that switch, that way you can get up to 2gbit/s out of the NAS while everyone will only get 1gbit/s for himself max this reduces bottlenecks without a total network overhaul.

Plus Synology has excellent support, and they'll help you do pretty much anything. A definite must for an inexperienced IT tech.