Best Storage server with Virtual Machines

[Jil Patel]

Hello Everyone,

I am a small business owner who wants to store my data and access it locally for my 8 pcs and also remotely access the data and the softwares hosted on my server for about 8-10 users.

 

what could be the best OS option for the server where my local client pcs are running windows.

 

my data is majorly Text based or pdfs and some photos.

 

If someone could help me with a good server hardware configuration, that would be amazing. Thank you  

[GOTSpectrum]

3 minutes ago, Jil Patel said:

Hello Everyone,

I am a small business owner who wants to store my data and access it locally for my 8 pcs and also remotely access the data and the softwares hosted on my server for about 8-10 users.

 

what could be the best OS option for the server where my local client pcs are running windows.

 

my data is majorly Text based or pdfs and some photos.

 

If someone could help me with a good server hardware configuration, that would be amazing. Thank you  

Are you looking at any major expansions on the horizon, build what you may need, rather than the bar minimum of what you do need right now 

[Jil Patel]

Just now, GOTSpectrum said:

Are you looking at any major expansions on the horizon, build what you may need, rather than the bar minimum of what you do need right now 

Not as of now but a little headroom would be cool might expand the team a little bit But not much

[leadeater]

26 minutes ago, Jil Patel said:

Hello Everyone,

I am a small business owner who wants to store my data and access it locally for my 8 pcs and also remotely access the data and the softwares hosted on my server for about 8-10 users.

 

what could be the best OS option for the server where my local client pcs are running windows.

 

my data is majorly Text based or pdfs and some photos.

 

If someone could help me with a good server hardware configuration, that would be amazing. Thank you  

Office 365 or Google Suite would be a much better choice here than buying and operating a physical server.

[wseaton]

A NAS like a synology if you just want to park a lot of bulk data. Not a good idea if you have local VMs and need a data store.

 

Othewise, put it in the cloud; Office 365 if you are running Microsoft apps

[Jil Patel]

On 11/13/2022 at 4:26 AM, leadeater said:

Office 365 or Google Suite would be a much better choice here than buying and operating a physical server.

I already Have office , i need to have a Nas specifically for an accounting software and erp software data hosting as well as company documents, product images , brochures etc. the accounting software does not accept cloud account sources like one drive integrated in Windows hence the solution. 

 

thanx for the reply.

[Jil Patel]

On 11/14/2022 at 4:25 AM, wseaton said:

A NAS like a synology if you just want to park a lot of bulk data. Not a good idea if you have local VMs and need a data store.

 

Othewise, put it in the cloud; Office 365 if you are running Microsoft apps

l already Have office , i need to have a Nas specifically for an accounting software and erp software data hosting as well as company documents, product images , brochures etc. the accounting software does not accept cloud account sources like one drive integrated in Windows hence the solution. 

 

Thank you for the answer 

[Jil Patel]

On 11/13/2022 at 4:26 AM, leadeater said:

Office 365 or Google Suite would be a much better choice here than buying and operating a physical server.

And if multiple sources are changing , adding or editing the data , there would be more delays in changing the data to all clients and sources as it is tied to the cloud hence might cause duplicacy issues in data such as auto generated invoice no., delivery notes , banking records etc. and also the responsiveness of the software is paramount to our company.

[leadeater]

28 minutes ago, Jil Patel said:

And if multiple sources are changing , adding or editing the data , there would be more delays in changing the data to all clients and sources as it is tied to the cloud hence might cause duplicacy issues in data such as auto generated invoice no., delivery notes , banking records etc. and also the responsiveness of the software is paramount to our company.

A lot of business use Office 365 and really don't have problems with that. If you are using any of the Office applications editing can be done live and concurrently shared and you can even see where each person is in the document. This applies to Google Suite too btw.

 

32 minutes ago, Jil Patel said:

the accounting software does not accept cloud account sources like one drive integrated in Windows hence the solution.

That can be annoying. However you can actually map OneDrive to a drive letter and SharePoint document libraries can be sync'd with local folder locations allowing applications that only accept local folders as data locations.

 

Realistically the software you are running is the largest factor to if you can use Office 365 etc or not, they can be made to work with what you have but I get your concerns and you also need somewhere to host those applications as well. Moving to cloud hosted/SaaS products isn't really an appropriate suggestion either, maybe something to think about long term though. Although I loath ongoing subscription licensing.

 

34 minutes ago, Jil Patel said:

I already Have office

How suitable is it though for hosting a server or NAS? Since you mention other software requirements based on that I would not recommend a Synology/QNAP etc NAS and go with a basic Windows server with backups to something like Backblaze. For remote access setup a VPN running on your local firewall.

[Jil Patel]

On 12/10/2022 at 10:08 AM, leadeater said:

A lot of business use Office 365 and really don't have problems with that. If you are using any of the Office applications editing can be done live and concurrently shared and you can even see where each person is in the document. This applies to Google Suite too btw.

 

That can be annoying. However you can actually map OneDrive to a drive letter and SharePoint document libraries can be sync'd with local folder locations allowing applications that only accept local folders as data locations.

 

Realistically the software you are running is the largest factor to if you can use Office 365 etc or not, they can be made to work with what you have but I get your concerns and you also need somewhere to host those applications as well. Moving to cloud hosted/SaaS products isn't really an appropriate suggestion either, maybe something to think about long term though. Although I loath ongoing subscription licensing.

 

How suitable is it though for hosting a server or NAS? Since you mention other software requirements based on that I would not recommend a Synology/QNAP etc NAS and go with a basic Windows server with backups to something like Backblaze. For remote access setup a VPN running on your local firewall.

Ok thank you , I currently have something Similar. Now I got the answer that I just need to upgrade the hardware and build some offsite backup. Thank you very much though , I learnt a lot.