Local Email Server

[swanysto]

So the back story is this:
I joined a small company. I am not an IT guy(I got my cs/programming degree) but I do know enough for small stuff. This company basically has five employees, thus 5 computers and one printer. We have our own email address, but it is hosted on an external email server.

Our network consists of 5 computers on WiFi to a 2wire router. Believe it or not, we do not have any problems, runs smoothly. However, if we have to send an email with an attachment, or even just a regular email, it can take quite a bit of time. Seems to take longer than if someone else sends us an email.

Would it be worth it to add a computer to the loop and just host the email server here, or am I looking at problems? The first one I foresee is the domain since it is running through a router.

By the way, I believe our ISP is sbc global DSL.

Thanks in advance
J

 

[seepy83]

Sending emails with attachments is probably slow due to the capacity of your DSL line (and the amount of other traffic going accross it), and the entire sending proccess might not happen faster if your email was hosted in-house. Your local mail server would get the attachment much faster (at LAN speed), but the email would not necessarily reach the recipient any faster.

It's probably overkill for you to host your own email, unless the business has some other reasons why it might need to setup a more robust network infrastructure. That being said, there could be some very compelling reasons for a company of that size to make the investment (i.e. to assist with backing up your important data). It's hard to give a definite answer without knowing more about the organization, the nature of your business, and what other problems you might be facing that could be resolved by building out a more advanced network.

 

[swanysto]

Originally posted by: seepy83
Your local mail server would get the attachment much faster (at LAN speed), but the email would not necessarily reach the recipient any faster.

But if I were to forward an email with an attachment to the office next to me, it would get to him at LAN speed right? See our problem is not sending emails to other people, it is sending them to each other. If it was anti-green, I could print the email and attachments and walk them to his desk long before he would get the email I forwarded him.

It's probably overkill for you to host your own email, unless the business has some other reasons why it might need to setup a more robust network infrastructure. That being said, there could be some very compelling reasons for a company of that size to make the investment (i.e. to assist with backing up your important data). It's hard to give a definite answer without knowing more about the organization, the nature of your business, and what other problems you might be facing that could be resolved by building out a more advanced network.

As far as this....my thought was using an old computer I have sitting at the house. It basically has an E5200, 2gigs, etc. My problem with be with all the DNS stuff. I would definitely think about later using it to back up the computers, but at this point would settle for faster email. I agree it would be overkill for what we need it for, but it wouldn't be expensive at all. Do you think it would be unreliable on the network we have?

 

[Crusty]

If all you are concerned about is reducing the time it takes to send attachments to fellow employees you'd be far better off just setting up a file server and sharing files that way.

 

[WobbleWobble]

Probably not worth the investment, but you could setup an Microsoft Windows Small Business Server and use a smart host or POP connector. That way, internal mail stays inside and if your local connection goes down your risk of losing mail sent to you is much reduced.

But of course you need to maintain it. Whereas with hosted mail, you don't.

Plus you get SharePoint, which is a great collaboration tool.

 

[RebateMonger]

Email is a HORRIBLE way to share documents. As noted, if your problem is sharing large files between employees, you need to invest in a local file server. This could be done as simply as investing in a Windows Home Server with at least two installed hard drives (so you can enable folder redundancy). With folder redundancy enabled, your important shared data shouldn't be lost if one of of the server's hard drives fails.

While almost all of my clients have their own mail servers, speediness is NOT one of the reasons for that. Most email is quite small and if you use server-based email (IMAP or Exchange), the emails are stored both locally and on the server and are automatically synchronized when they are connected. A long-distance Exchange server (or hosted accounts) is nearly as fast as a local mail server.

If you decide you still want your own mail server my recommendation would be a Windows Small Business Server. That includes an email server, file server, shared calendars, contacts, remote access to your PCs, automatic server backups and automatic server status reporting.

Incidentally, if you get a Windows Home Server, it'll automatically make daily full image backups of all XP and Vista computers in your office, which makes for very fast recovery of failed hard drives or malware infections of your desktop PCs.

 

[azev]

I agree with the comment above, this would be a good scenario for a windows small business server. Centralized file storage for ease of backup & many other services that came with SBS including email server would definitely beneficial in your scenario.

 

[JackMDS]

I think that it would serve well the OP to explain a little more what the nature of the Attachments is, and where it is going to?

Otherwise, whatever Rebate Monger posted above encapsulates Very Good Solutions.

 

[Athena]

Originally posted by: swanysto
See our problem is not sending emails to other people, it is sending them to each other.

And the reason you don't have some sort of shared volumes is...?

What is being used for backup? You might consider getting something that will hold 2 x 1.5TB drives and installing Windows Home server on that. You can organize the shared volumes any way you like and get everyone backed up too.

 

[JackMDS]

Originally posted by: Athena

Originally posted by: swanysto
See our problem is not sending emails to other people, it is sending them to each other.

Yeah I can see Now, swanysto some how sc**w up the post with the Quote Box, and because the whole thing is in Quote i did not get the idea.

Thus Rebate Monger is Da Man. :thumbsup:

 

[pjkenned]

Just a thought, you can easily get something like WHS/OpenFiler/FreeNAS to just do shares with 5 people. That's a $500 setup if the files aren't huge. Probably 2x 1TB disks (less than $200) in raid 1 are fine for redundancy/performance on a setup like that that will be idle 99% of the time. Heck, an Atom would probably have enough horsepower for the server too.

Also, hosting your own e-mail is not going to be worth the effort since you have to do spam filtering. Big providers have great spam filters these days, and unless you can replicate that (expensive) then you might as well have someone else host.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: pjkenned
Just a thought, you can easily get something like WHS/OpenFiler/FreeNAS to just do shares with 5 people. That's a $500 setup if the files aren't huge. Probably 2x 1TB disks (less than $200) in raid 1 are fine for redundancy/performance on a setup like that that will be idle 99% of the time. Heck, an Atom would probably have enough horsepower for the server too.

Yeah. The OP could take that E5200 PC, pop in two $100 1 TB hard drives, and install Windows Home Server for $100. That'd give the file sharing they need for up to 10 user accounts, plus desktop PC backups of ten computers.

Note, though, that no matter whether RAID 1 or WHS Folder redundancy is used, THERE SHOULD BE INDEPENDENT BACKUPS of anything important. Don't trust any single drive or array with the only copy of an important file. Depending on the amount of data, they could use online backups or could back up the "server" to eSATA or USB external drives (preferably at least three which are swapped periodically and most kept offsite).

As you said, the whole thing can be done securely with backups for the neighborhood of $500 if there's an old PC sitting around that can accept Windows Home Server. Almost any six-year-old PC can do that.

 

[Athena]

Originally posted by: pjkenned
Just a thought, you can easily get something like WHS/OpenFiler/FreeNAS to just do shares with 5 people. That's a $500 setup if the files aren't huge. Probably 2x 1TB disks (less than $200) in raid 1 are fine for redundancy/performance on a setup like that that will be idle 99% of the time.

Agreed. I just built a similar home server for a friend of mine and the total cost was <$450. We got an off-lease GX620 from Dell Auctions for less than $200 then installed Windows Home Server and added two 1TB drives bought on sale. In addition to providing centralized shared storage and an always on laser printer (which was not a network model), it backs up his 4 machines automatically and has the added bonus of providing remote access to the shared volumes.

He's a very happy camper indeed.