Looking to help improve my parent's business. I have a simple setup with a workgroup, however my cousin who works in IT said basically the company is unprotected. I made a Server PC out of a regular PC and am just hosting from there, however the idea is to make a RAID Server instead. I've been doing research for a solid hour, and I think I know what I'm doing, but I know there are a lot of tech people in here. Essentially I am going to keep my original case and mobo since it's newer and should support RAID setup, get new HDDs to run the new Windows Server 2012 OS I am going to purchase, then either run RAID 1,5, or 10. There are only 8 computers that will need to access the network and 2 printers. Setting up into a Domain is where I haven't spent as much time researching and am not sure how easy/hard that task will be. But regardless, my questions are as follows: -Should I set up a Domain now while I wait to build/buy parts for the Server? -Which RAID format should I run for such a small company? -What type of HDDs should I purchase for RAID setup? -Is Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials good enough for what I'm running? or is an older version better? -If I change out Computers in the future to newer computers and run them on windows 10 instead of windows 7 like they're running now, will that become an issue? -Am I overthinking things?
Better to run Server 2012 if you plan on upgrading computers to Windows 10, than getting an old version of SBS like SBS08. Ideally you're better off beefing up a nice server, getting VMWare on there, and then setting up something like a file server, and then your primary domain controller. Have that thing do DHCP, DNS, etc. Also, keep in mind if you're going to create a domain, in order for computers to be joined to said domain, they need to be running the professional version of windows or Enterprise. (no home version) I'll let someone else answer your other questions.
Overthinking?, I think yes. Small business, better to find and use cloud services and not worry about it. If cost or security is an issue than Virtual Machines + Linux + NAS. Dell has some cheaper NAS hw options, starting at $150 increasing depending on disk space.
You don't need all this expensive stuff. Just go get a cheap Mobo with Raid and put linux on there. Install a dhcp server on there. Get a 20 port switch. The Linux server acts acts as DHCP server. Linux can can Run Samba so you can serve files from there for your windows machines. Use openLDAP for authentication.
I agree with this. For what you need, you can go cheap on most of the stuff. Just look on Newegg or Amazon for some cheap HDDs with good reviews. Personally recommend Netgear as far as switches go. It's usually my go-to whenever some of my clients need new switches. TP-Link is also not bad. Server 2012 is pretty expensive, and if you're not taking full advantage of everything it offers, I don't think it's worth spending the money on.
if you want to improve your parents business, recommend they hire IT staff who knows what they're doing j/k
For small business, I would recommend a cloud provider like AWS assuming they have decent internet connectivity. Everything is backed up and secure.
Definitely go public cloud. If you decide to build instead then RAID 5 is the right choice. Raid 1 and 0 are really just home user setups imo. Dont even consider those and Raid 10 is not financially scalable.
