Planning to build a small server (or NAS, still not sure) for my dad's small business

[elmasodoacro]

Hi guys!

 

First time in this section of the forum, just trying to help my dad. He is the manager of a small accounting firm here in Lima, Peru, and he has read some about servers and he asked me if that would help him in his small business. I help him in most of IT stuff in his job, but I am really a novice in servers. I watched some of Linus' videos about servers and, to be honest, that's completely too much for him. He has a small office with 10 assistants, his main PC and my mom's one (she is like his right hand in the business). The idea, he says, is that it has to be a computer or device that all the PC can access for all the data needed for the accounting software used in the business, quickly and reliably. All PCs are connected by LAN (Cat-6 cables) and a small switch and most of the time they work OK. 

 

As far my knowledge told me, because of the size of his business, a rack server is not needed, just a good PC with good storage (at that time SSD were really, really expensive) and good network connection (Gigabit). So, few years ago, I installed that in his office as a "server" PC where all main data is saved and the rest of PCs access and process from. But, he has been experiencing some troubles with that so he thinks a rack server is needed. 

 

I don't know almost nothing of that kind of devices apart from that they are really expensive and have specialized features for server work (different processor and mainboard) and I am not so sure if he needs that kind of stuff. Can you help me please? If a rack server is needed, what kind would be that it won't cost an arm and a leg?, if not, why? and what alternatives do you recommend?

 

Thanks so much!

[Electronics Wizardy]

are you on a domain?

 

How much storage do you need?

 

How much io do the clients need to do ?

 

Id really try to get a cloud or managed solution here if you don't have much experience, as this can fail, and take a lot of data with it.

 

Do you have a backup plan?

[elmasodoacro]

6 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

are you on a domain?

 

How much storage do you need?

 

How much io do the clients need to do ?

 

Id really try to get a cloud or managed solution here if you don't have much experience, as this can fail, and take a lot of data with it.

 

Do you have a backup plan?

Thanks for the reply.

 

No, we aren't on a domain.

 

Less than 5TB of data

 

Hmmm, apart from a normal display, mouse, keyboard and a printer, just a really reliable and fast network port.

 

Could you explain what do you mean as a backup plan? About the cloud option, here in Peru internet is not that reliable, sometimes there are sudden cuts, latency issues, and really slow speed of data transfer.

 

Thanks again!

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 minutes ago, elmasodoacro said:

Could you explain what do you mean as a backup plan? About the cloud option, here in Peru internet is not that reliable, sometimes there are sudden cuts, latency issues, and really slow speed of data transfer.

Do you have anouther copy of the data if the server fails? You don't want the server to be the only copy of the data.

 

4 minutes ago, elmasodoacro said:

Less than 5TB of data

How fast is this growing?

 

Id probably go with something like a 4 bay nas here, synology has some good stuff. You get good software with those nas boxes. Then Id get a few external hdd to store offsite for backups.

[TheRealShadoh]

You mention it's an accounting firm, Peru may have some laws that you should look into as far as protections needed for the data he is storing. Wouldn't want to open him up to lawsuits or anything. 

 

How many employees does he have who will need access to the data? The standard solution would be to run a Windows domain, join the computers the the domain, and use the power of domain joined systems to aid in your security. You can use a Windows file server to store 5TB of data fairly easily.

 

Simple solution... Take a box, load a hypervisor onto it hyper-V, esxi, nutanix CE, Citrix, take your pick. Create a virtual domain controller, and a virtual file server. You'll need to setup RAID at the hardware level with a lot of these options, or do pass-through into the hypervisor and leverage a software raid like storage spaces, freenas, etc... (though virtualizing your storage layer can make it harder to troubleshoot). Benefit of Nutanix CE is they handle the storage piece for you at the hypervisor level. Setup an on-site backup NAS, backup the data. Then create a policy to rip it to an external media and move it offsite. 

 

Harder solution (but probably cheaper with licensing)... Setup a NAS on freeNAS or unraid type software (I prefer freeNAS for a consumer deployment, but like unraid at home... sounds like with your data size unraid is probably fine). setup some storagepools (main) (backup) or just (main), spin up a domain controller VM or container(samba), spin up a file server or use the NAS's file system. Create backup policies from the two storage pools, or setup a second NAS for backing up from the single storage pool, set a policy to rip to external and move offsite. 

 

You have a lot of options, and as said above you can go with something as simple as a 4 bay pre-made. To something similar to what I've laid out above (sort of a cheapo enterprise solution). I'd say which way you go depends on your budget, as well as any legal requirements to safeguard the data. 

 

[elmasodoacro]

15 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Do you have anouther copy of the data if the server fails? You don't want the server to be the only copy of the data.

 

How fast is this growing?

 

Id probably go with something like a 4 bay nas here, synology has some good stuff. You get good software with those nas boxes. Then Id get a few external hdd to store offsite for backups.

My dad has some external SSD with the most vital data backup.

 

To be honest, it is fairly possible that it stays the same for a long time.

 

Let me see where I can find a NAS supplier here. 

 

Thanks deeply.

[elmasodoacro]

9 hours ago, TheRealShadoh said:

You mention it's an accounting firm, Peru may have some laws that you should look into as far as protections needed for the data he is storing. Wouldn't want to open him up to lawsuits or anything.

 

We already read about that and here the laws are pretty flexible. There is only one against hacking and similar, nothing else.

 

9 hours ago, TheRealShadoh said:

How many employees does he have who will need access to the data? The standard solution would be to run a Windows domain, join the computers the the domain, and use the power of domain joined systems to aid in your security. You can use a Windows file server to store 5TB of data fairly easily.

 

No more than 10 employees. I looked up about Windows File Servers and I think that's exactly what we are looking for.

 

9 hours ago, TheRealShadoh said:

Simple solution... Take a box, load a hypervisor onto it hyper-V, esxi, nutanix CE, Citrix, take your pick. Create a virtual domain controller, and a virtual file server. You'll need to setup RAID at the hardware level with a lot of these options, or do pass-through into the hypervisor and leverage a software raid like storage spaces, freenas, etc... (though virtualizing your storage layer can make it harder to troubleshoot). Benefit of Nutanix CE is they handle the storage piece for you at the hypervisor level. Setup an on-site backup NAS, backup the data. Then create a policy to rip it to an external media and move it offsite. 

 

Harder solution (but probably cheaper with licensing)... Setup a NAS on freeNAS or unraid type software (I prefer freeNAS for a consumer deployment, but like unraid at home... sounds like with your data size unraid is probably fine). setup some storagepools (main) (backup) or just (main), spin up a domain controller VM or container(samba), spin up a file server or use the NAS's file system. Create backup policies from the two storage pools, or setup a second NAS for backing up from the single storage pool, set a policy to rip to external and move offsite. 

 

You have a lot of options, and as said above you can go with something as simple as a 4 bay pre-made. To something similar to what I've laid out above (sort of a cheapo enterprise solution). I'd say which way you go depends on your budget, as well as any legal requirements to safeguard the data. 

 

Maybe a NAS would be a good option two, but I only heard about the term just a few weeks ago  Is there any tutorial here in the forum on what a NAS is, how to get one and how to configure it for the first time?

[plesanutu]

Hey, mate! I think you are over-complicating things. For your needs, I think a NAS is the better option. You can buy a Synology NAS which come with their own pre-installed operation system, ready to go and it already has the built in option for a RAID array and also you can do offsite back-up with minimal effort (all that built in).
Take a look here: 

It is great that you want to learn and explore different options, but dont do it with important data. If you just start learning about servers, now is not the time to play with your father company data.  
What you want to achieve is a network attached storage that can be accessed by multiple persons and has some sort of data redundancy and (optionally - if I understand correctly) offsite back-up. That is what Synology is doing. Is giving you a piece of hardware that has a custom software specially designed for this and is simple to use. And has many more features to help with data protection, file management, and I think user management also (you get to choose who is accessing the NAS and what data are they accessing).

Give it a try and tell me what do you think.