Conceptual help?

[ItalianBread]

Hey guys! 

I was having trouble understanding the general concept of servers. So, I was told by a company representative to make a small server (I was told to buy a cheap PC, because it would do the job) so that I could read and write on it from multiple computers. I asked if I could make a NAS drive, but the representative said such a server wouldn't be needed, as it's kind of slow for what the software needs to do anyway. I'm absolutely new to networking, so can someone help me understand what he intended? The only type of server is I knew of are NAS servers, so I'm thoroughly confused. Any help would be great!

 

Thanks in advance!

[kirashi]

8 minutes ago, ItalianBread said:

I was told by a company representative to make a small server (I was told to buy a cheap PC, because it would do the job) so that I could read and write on it from multiple computers.

--SNIP--

can someone help me understand what he intended? 

Um, so he wants a file server that multiple PC's can read and write files to? That's one of the very definitions of a NAS, and in a small business situation, I'd highly recommend buying a business model of a Synology 4-bay (or more bays) NAS box since their goal is to be cheap. (The maintenance costs of building a cheap PC fileserver often outweigh the initial costs of a dedicated NAS that "just works".)

 

What specifications and requirements does this server need to do?

How does it interact with the other PC's in the office? How many PC's are there?

Is it to be used for Active Directory authentication? eMail or Exchange?

What kind of data (and how much) is to be stored on the server?

Or maybe it's just a PC to run machinery, like a CNC machine or vinyl cutter?

Details man, we need more details.

[ItalianBread]

7 minutes ago, kirashi said:

Um, so he wants a file server that multiple PC's can read and write files to? That's one of the very definitions of a NAS, and in a small business situation, I'd highly recommend buying a business model of a Synology 4-bay (or more bays) NAS box since their goal is to be cheap. (The maintenance costs of building a cheap PC fileserver often outweigh the initial costs of a dedicated NAS that "just works".)

 

What specifications and requirements does this server need to do?

How does it interact with the other PC's in the office? How many PC's are there?

Is it to be used for Active Directory authentication? eMail or Exchange?

What kind of data (and how much) is to be stored on the server?

Or maybe it's just a PC to run machinery, like a CNC machine or vinyl cutter?

Details man, we need more details.

Yeah. He set up an appointment for the afternoon tomorrow. I need to set everything up by then. That's why he said a small PC would be fine. He said anything with about 20+GB would last us years, but I'd probably go for 200 as my dad likes to work exponentially as hard as others. LOL. I'm assuming he just needs something barebones, as we'll all be just saving basic forms and documents on it. Proably about 100-150 documents a day max. The only machinery running in it are 2-3 PC's. And sorry about the details. Again, instead of wetting my toes, I'm just thrown into a lake. I might know about PC hardware, but I have absolutely no experience with networking and servers.

[ItalianBread]

14 minutes ago, kirashi said:

Um, so he wants a file server that multiple PC's can read and write files to? That's one of the very definitions of a NAS, and in a small business situation, I'd highly recommend buying a business model of a Synology 4-bay (or more bays) NAS box since their goal is to be cheap. (The maintenance costs of building a cheap PC fileserver often outweigh the initial costs of a dedicated NAS that "just works".)

 

What specifications and requirements does this server need to do?

How does it interact with the other PC's in the office? How many PC's are there?

Is it to be used for Active Directory authentication? eMail or Exchange?

What kind of data (and how much) is to be stored on the server?

Or maybe it's just a PC to run machinery, like a CNC machine or vinyl cutter?

Details man, we need more details.

I'm doing this for my dad's insurance agency, in case you need to know. I'm the most tech savvy person he knows, so I'm kind of responsible to set everything up. I don't have a problem staying up all night watching Techquickie videos on servers to understand networks, but it would be best if I have some form of sleep 

[kirashi]

45 minutes ago, ItalianBread said:

I'm doing this for my dad's insurance agency, in case you need to know. I'm the most tech savvy person he knows, so I'm kind of responsible to set everything up. I don't have a problem staying up all night watching Techquickie videos on servers to understand networks, but it would be best if I have some form of sleep 

Alrighty, insurance agency... Was just about to suggest using DropBox Pro (around $110/yr) to sync files between PC's, which would also server as a pseudo backup solution too. (DropBox doesn't replace a good backup, but can be used this way as a last resort.) However, I'm willing to bet he doesn't want anything cloud based because of confidential insurance files and such.

 

After you factor in the cost of building a budget PC for this task, and a Windows license, or the time and knowledge you'd take to configure a Linux NAS variant like FreeNAS, I'd still recommend something like Synology's DS216 series because they're dead simple to setup. This is especially important if you want to have some sleep, even if your dad is willing to pay you for your time to go the custom PC route. That being said, building a small custom PC NAS would work as well, and give more options down the road, but as I've said before, will require more time and maintenance on your (or your dad's) part.

 

Here's a comparison link to the Synology unit's I'm talking about, along with a couple Amazon.com links too. You'll still need to factor in hard drives, of course, but if you guys only need 20GB space for now, see if you can find some older drives in good working order that someone is selling for cheap (like a $5 or $10 250GB), or just buy 2 new 500GB drives and call it good.

https://www.synology.com/en-global/products/compare/DS716+II/DS216+II/DS216play/DS216/DS216j

 

DS216J - (Budget Option) - https://camelcamelcamel.com/Synology-DS216J-NAS-DiskStation-DS216j/product/B01BNPT1EG

DS216+II - (Faster / More Features) - https://camelcamelcamel.com/Synology-DS216-II-DiskStation-Diskless/product/B01EMQYGWA

DS716+II - (Overkill, Expandable beyond 2 drives) - https://camelcamelcamel.com/Synology-DS716-II-Storage-DiskStation/product/B01EMPW5Z6

[ItalianBread]

34 minutes ago, kirashi said:

Alrighty, insurance agency... Was just about to suggest using DropBox Pro (around $110/yr) to sync files between PC's, which would also server as a pseudo backup solution too. (DropBox doesn't replace a good backup, but can be used this way as a last resort.) However, I'm willing to bet he doesn't want anything cloud based because of confidential insurance files and such.

 

After you factor in the cost of building a budget PC for this task, and a Windows license, or the time and knowledge you'd take to configure a Linux NAS variant like FreeNAS, I'd still recommend something like Synology's DS216 series because they're dead simple to setup. This is especially important if you want to have some sleep, even if your dad is willing to pay you for your time to go the custom PC route. That being said, building a small custom PC NAS would work as well, and give more options down the road, but as I've said before, will require more time and maintenance on your (or your dad's) part.

 

Here's a comparison link to the Synology unit's I'm talking about, along with a couple Amazon.com links too. You'll still need to factor in hard drives, of course, but if you guys only need 20GB space for now, see if you can find some older drives in good working order that someone is selling for cheap (like a $5 or $10 250GB), or just buy 2 new 500GB drives and call it good.

https://www.synology.com/en-global/products/compare/DS716+II/DS216+II/DS216play/DS216/DS216j

 

DS216J - (Budget Option) - https://camelcamelcamel.com/Synology-DS216J-NAS-DiskStation-DS216j/product/B01BNPT1EG

DS216+II - (Faster / More Features) - https://camelcamelcamel.com/Synology-DS216-II-DiskStation-Diskless/product/B01EMQYGWA

DS716+II - (Overkill, Expandable beyond 2 drives) - https://camelcamelcamel.com/Synology-DS716-II-Storage-DiskStation/product/B01EMPW5Z6

Do they offer one day delivery? I'll be needing it by tomorrow morning

[brwainer]

29 minutes ago, ItalianBread said:

Do they offer one day delivery? I'll be needing it by tomorrow morning

Go to your local tech stores and see if they have any Synology, QNAP, or Buffalo NAS systems. You want something with at least two drive bays so you can set them in RAID1 (Mirror).

 

Tech stores in order of preference:

• Frys, Microcenter, other places that specialize in computer hardware, they are most likely to have business grade NAS models
• Staples, Office Depot/OfficeMax, other office supply stores
• Best Buy, Walmart

[ItalianBread]

11 minutes ago, brwainer said:

Go to your local tech stores and see if they have any Synology, QNAP, or Buffalo NAS systems. You want something with at least two drive bays so you can set them in RAID1 (Mirror).

 

Tech stores in order of preference:

• Frys, Microcenter, other places that specialize in computer hardware, they are most likely to have business grade NAS models
• Staples, Office Depot/OfficeMax, other office supply stores
• Best Buy, Walmart

There's a Fry's ~45-50 minutes away from me, I'll have to see if I can manage going there.

[ItalianBread]

13 minutes ago, brwainer said:

Go to your local tech stores and see if they have any Synology, QNAP, or Buffalo NAS systems. You want something with at least two drive bays so you can set them in RAID1 (Mirror).

 

Tech stores in order of preference:

• Frys, Microcenter, other places that specialize in computer hardware, they are most likely to have business grade NAS models
• Staples, Office Depot/OfficeMax, other office supply stores
• Best Buy, Walmart

I think I'll go with this: http://www.frys.com/product/9006247?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

Know any good cheap drives I could use RAID 1 on? I'm opting for two of these: http://www.frys.com/product/5478279?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

[brwainer]

33 minutes ago, ItalianBread said:

I think I'll go with this: http://www.frys.com/product/9006247?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

Know any good cheap drives I could use RAID 1 on? I'm opting for two of these: http://www.frys.com/product/5478279?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

all the drives in a given price range, size, and feature set are more or less equal. There are sometimes certain models that aren't good (e.g. Seagate 3TB HDDs around 2013/2014 after the Thailand flood) but on the whole failure rates are going to be the same across all sales for all the major brands. Some people swear that X brand is better, but if you ask those people, they've just been unlucky enough to have one or two drives die prematurely, and they don't actually have a large enough sample size to make a solid conclusion.

 

Personally for NAS and small server use I think that paying a bit extra for NAS rated drives, like WD RED and Seagate Ironwolf, makes sense in the long run. NAS drives have two things that set them apart - better handling of vibration from other adjacent drives, and better compatibility with NAS controllers (WD calls this TLER, other brands call it ERC or CCTL) http://www.frys.com/product/7726248?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG or http://www.frys.com/product/9088357?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

 

The manufacturer's warranty length is an indicator of how long the drive can be expected to work. Any time beyond the warranty period that the drive keeps functioning is more or less bonus. The warranty periods are decided based on how that drive is designed, and how long similar drives have lasted historically. The drive you linked has a 2 year warranty while both of the NAS drives I linked have 3 year warranties. For business purposes, it is common to budget for replacing the drives when the warranty expires, e.g. in 3 years you should not be surprised if you have to buy new drives because they died. If one or both drives die before then, you just get them replaced under warranty. If one or both drives last 3 years (which they would be expected to, otherwise the manufacturer would lose money on warranty replacements) then at the 3 year mark I would buy at least one spare drive to keep on hand so it is ready for quick replacement when they do inevitably die.

[ItalianBread]

9 minutes ago, brwainer said:

all the drives in a given price range, size, and feature set are more or less equal. There are sometimes certain models that aren't good (e.g. Seagate 3TB HDDs around 2013/2014 after the Thailand flood) but on the whole failure rates are going to be the same across all sales for all the major brands. Some people swear that X brand is better, but if you ask those people, they've just been unlucky enough to have one or two drives die prematurely, and they don't actually have a large enough sample size to make a solid conclusion.

 

Personally for NAS and small server use I think that paying a bit extra for NAS rated drives, like WD RED and Seagate Ironwolf, makes sense in the long run. NAS drives have two things that set them apart - better handling of vibration from other adjacent drives, and better compatibility with NAS controllers (WD calls this TLER, other brands call it ERC or CCTL) http://www.frys.com/product/7726248?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG or http://www.frys.com/product/9088357?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

 

The manufacturer's warranty length is an indicator of how long the drive can be expected to work. Any time beyond the warranty period that the drive keeps functioning is more or less bonus. The warranty periods are decided based on how that drive is designed, and how long similar drives have lasted historically. The drive you linked has a 2 year warranty while both of the NAS drives I linked have 3 year warranties. For business purposes, it is common to budget for replacing the drives when the warranty expires, e.g. in 3 years you should not be surprised if you have to buy new drives because they died. If one or both drives die before then, you just get them replaced under warranty. If one or both drives last 3 years (which they would be expected to, otherwise the manufacturer would lose money on warranty replacements) then at the 3 year mark I would buy at least one spare drive to keep on hand so it is ready for quick replacement when they do inevitably die.

Alright then, I went for the IronWolf. Is there anything else I should buy? Does this NAS server come preinstalled with the server OS? Oh, and does LTT have any video on setting up a server? Thanks for helping me out so much BTW, I was absolutely clueless about what to do. Really appreciated.

[brwainer]

42 minutes ago, ItalianBread said:

Alright then, I went for the IronWolf. Is there anything else I should buy? Does this NAS server come preinstalled with the server OS? Oh, and does LTT have any video on setting up a server? Thanks for helping me out so much BTW, I was absolutely clueless about what to do. Really appreciated.

yes, it comes with QNAP's own OS. I recommend updating it first thing before setting anything up.

 

I don't think LTT has ever done videos on QNAP NASes before. But they are very intuitive. Based on what you've said about what your consultant needs, you just have to set up some user accounts (one per person and a separate one as the administrator, which will likely be the first one auto-created) and whatever shared folders you want. The type of share you want to make is called SMB, that's the main protocol that Windows uses.

[NZLaurence]

Just a word of warning, the last time I dealt with something like this the software in question was a server install with a backing database. It was small and simple but needed to be installed on windows as it wasn't just a file share.

 

Before you buy anything you need to asked the guy if the 'server' has to be installed on windows or if it's just a file share.

[brwainer]

2 hours ago, NZLaurence said:

Just a word of warning, the last time I dealt with something like this the software in question was a server install with a backing database. It was small and simple but needed to be installed on windows as it wasn't just a file share.

 

Before you buy anything you need to asked the guy if the 'server' has to be installed on windows or if it's just a file share.

This is a good point that I had not considered. @ItalianBread This is an important thing you should ask your consultant - does it have to run on a Windows computer, or does it just need a Windows-type file share?

[ItalianBread]

12 hours ago, brwainer said:

This is a good point that I had not considered. @ItalianBread This is an important thing you should ask your consultant - does it have to run on a Windows computer, or does it just need a Windows-type file share?

It just has to be a file share. The new server I just made mostly runs on the cloud but the software is good enough for it to show in the Network tab. I set the permissions to be read and write for the PC's and now the software is working perfectly fine. Thanks for your help!