A few questions about...

[TheoPetro]

I am trying to make a small file server (~80GB) for my dad's small business and I am having a bit of trouble.

Problem A:
I have 4 PCs (3 desktops and a laptop). I have XP Pro on one of the desktops and the other 3 have XP Home. I have a Pro CD but I am having a bit of trouble finding where I can buy 3 more licenses for the other 3 comps. I looked on MS's website and only found a full version for ~299. I thought extra licenses were ~50-100. So I need 3 more Pro licenses.

Problem B:
I never dealt with offsite storage before and was wondering if you guys had any reccomendations for which company to go with. It needs to be inexpensive and backup nightly w/o anyone telling it to. It will be less than 100gb.

Problem C:
I have a good idea of how to set everything up but was wondering what order would be best. Like Internet>Modem>Server>Router>Satalite PCs? Any suguestions on this one?

Problem D:
Are there any problems with using remote access on windows XP Pro? Like anything I should watchout for or guard against?

Problem E:
I need to be able to print from any of the satalites to 2 printers that I want connected to the server comp. Is this easy to do?

Thanks in advance guys. I thought I knew how to do this 100% but once I got into the deatails I had a few questions.

 

[TheoPetro]

help?

 

[TheoPetro]

 

[DaveSimmons]

You don't need XP Pro for a "workgroup" based home / small-office network. What exactly will the server be used for, maybe you don't need a domain.

Best price on legal licenses are OEM copies from Newegg.com or ZipZoomFly. Anything more than a few dollars cheaper in qty 3 is going to be warez or academic.

Normally you set up modem > router, and connect the server to the router just like the other PCs.

Printing sharing is dead simple, you just turn on file & printer serving on the PC where the printers are attached (it doesn't even need to be a server).

I have no idea about remote access, ask in the OS forum.

Offsite backup: of all PCs or just the server? The forums at www.WebHostingTalk.com have a good search function, try there.

 

[TheoPetro]

the server is just going to be used to store any spread sheets or letters, basically all of the files that will be saved will be saved to the server.

I just need the server backedup because it will be where everything will be saved.

Thanks for the help.

 

[DaveSimmons]

For just shared file storage your server could be a regular PC running XP. You can definitely just use a workgroup (and XP Home on most PCs) for this as well as the shared printers.

Turn on file and printer sharing on the "server" PC, create a folder and change the properties to allow sharing and write access. You can create sub-folders for different persons / PCs.

 

[rasczak]

I'll be very honest with you. If you've never done this before, you'd be better off having your dad hire a consultant and doing this right the first time. You can watch as he sets it all up and you get the experience of knowing the system from the ground up. This is your pops business and if you lose data then you could really be in for some trouble.

If you still feel comfortable going forward then just make sure you make backups all of his data before you dive in.

Good Luck!

 

[TheoPetro]

Originally posted by: jpbelauskas
I'll be very honest with you. If you've never done this before, you'd be better off having your dad hire a consultant and doing this right the first time. You can watch as he sets it all up and you get the experience of knowing the system from the ground up. This is your pops business and if you lose data then you could really be in for some trouble.

If you still feel comfortable going forward then just make sure you make backups all of his data before you dive in.

Good Luck!

Thanks for the advice. I plan on backing up everything then doing fresh windows installs on each of the comps. Some of these are have a ton of useless stuff on them (wetherbug, etc) and stuff left by old secretaries that just needs to go. There really isnt much data yet because untill now all of the spreadsheets have been done on paper. There is an IT guy comming in that is going to look over the whole thing after I set it up to make sure its all ok. I have setup a few home networks and I dont think this will be much different seeing as how its so small.

 

[rasczak]

good luck!

 

[trOver]

i second the whole pop getting mad thing. dont screw it up man