Is a mac osx server fits to a office with 10 PCs

[MikhailT]

You are a CEO's dream. I mean that in a good way, as your suggestions potentially saves this guy thousands of dollars and hours of setup time and STILL offering the exact capabilities required.
I would not custom build anything though, rather I'd just get some serious drives in a stock PC running Ultimate.

And a sysadmin/tech support's worse nightmare in a bad way.

By losing all control of the 10 PCs just to have a simple solution, he'll be spending more time doing tech support instead of the server controlling most of the automated work.

Suppose a user lost his password on one of those 10 PCs? What would his solution be?

Everything is possible with the stock PC/W7 and simple file storage, just be aware that it'll be more work in the end if the company expand and the actual "goals" change.

 

[funfun166]

Everyone in this thread will probably hate this idea but...

Personally I would not bother with a server as your listed requirements are:
1. Storing files centrally
2. Sharing files (between 10 computers)
3. Sharing a printer
4. Having a Calendar

For your file storage and sharing needs I would custom build a PC with Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate, as Windows 7 supports 20 SMB connections as apposed to the 10 of XP. For storage I would get a motherboard that supports RAID 5 and build an array large enough for your needs (keep your OS on a separate drive). Backups can be made on external drives with Memeo autobackup premium, possible in conjunction with an online solution (though I would not want a third party to have access to all of my files).

My main reason for using a regular desktop is you are not running any server apps. Therefore there is no need to deal with the headaches of a server such as DNS and all the other settings (which are difficult for the novice without a lot of study), the much higher expenses (OS, licenses, Anti-Virus).

As for the shared printer. Just buy an HP with built in Ethernet. Of all the brands I have set up HP is by far the easiest to configure.

For your calendar just use Google or Yahoo calendar. They are free and work great. I found Google calendar to be easier to configure. Plus you can set up G-Mail and relay through their system so that you have free IMAP support lots of e-mail storage space and still pipe everything through your domains e-mail when configured correctly (to avoid the @gmail.com on your sent e-mail).

Other things you may want to consider. For networking I would set up a multiport gigabit switch then connect that to a router. If you need remote access to your server you can use gotomypc.com's services. For anti-virus you can use Avast-Antivirus (their business edition is $50 but much better than Norton or McAfee). For the backup I would use Memeo Professional Backup as mentioned above. Then you can keep two backups and rotate them out daily or backup to a local external drive and to an off site device via FTP.

thank you

it is a feasible solution for me

The other computers in the office are all notebook, is it possible to connect all notebooks to this pc by wifi?
what is the drawback?

Also , I have no much concept about the server/client structure(e.g. SBS), what extra can it do , over velocityg4's solution?

 

[MikhailT]

thank you

it is a feasible solution for me

The other computers in the office are all notebook, is it possible to connect all notebooks to this pc by wifi?
what is the drawback?

Also , I have no much concept about the server/client structure(e.g. SBS), what extra can it do , over velocityg4's solution?

Yes, it is not different from a wired connection. They all route by IP addresses. The drawbacks are security and network performance (slow/dropouts/deadzones) if you don't get a high end wifi router.

As for server/client, jampat and belvdr already explained the benefits of having a server.

 

[Les Kern]

And a sysadmin/tech support's worse nightmare in a bad way.

By losing all control of the 10 PCs just to have a simple solution, he'll be spending more time doing tech support instead of the server controlling most of the automated work.

Suppose a user lost his password on one of those 10 PCs? What would his solution be?

Everything is possible with the stock PC/W7 and simple file storage, just be aware that it'll be more work in the end if the company expand and the actual "goals" change.

I saw no reference to any "automated work". But if you are referring to tech support and not office flow, there are a million solutions out there to almost completely eliminate tech support. I have 1,200 machines, and besides the odd issue things run pretty smoothly, and I am ALWAYS looking out for the easiest, least expensive solution that doesn't negatively impact productivity. As for forgotten passwords, all those machines should have an admin user, and the local user should be limited accounts anyway. Not ONE user in my organization is an admin. But this is picking at nits.
All this reminds me of the question "Why does a dog lick itself? Because it CAN, not because it SHOULD."

 

[velocityg4]

You are a CEO's dream. I mean that in a good way, as your suggestions potentially saves this guy thousands of dollars and hours of setup time and STILL offering the exact capabilities required.
I would not custom build anything though, rather I'd just get some serious drives in a stock PC running Ultimate.

I only suggested the custom build as it is so cheap to get a RAID 5 capable machine that way. Whereas desktops from OEM's that are RAID capable are usually premium priced as they come with unneeded minimums. Such as much more RAM and a far faster CPU than necessary (though I have not looked at the latest offerings). Plus the OP can get a PSU that meets the minimum energy requirements and is 80+ Silver or Gold certified to save even more on yearly energy costs.

And a sysadmin/tech support's worse nightmare in a bad way.

By losing all control of the 10 PCs just to have a simple solution, he'll be spending more time doing tech support instead of the server controlling most of the automated work.

Suppose a user lost his password on one of those 10 PCs? What would his solution be?

Everything is possible with the stock PC/W7 and simple file storage, just be aware that it'll be more work in the end if the company expand and the actual "goals" change.

Given the op states the company does not have IT expertise and from the original post I surmised the OP has little or no experience with a Windows Server. Therefore I doubt the server would be configured to restrict installations of software to the client computers. If so configured they would likely run into a lot of headaches when running updates or installing new software and trying to figure out how to do so with the new restrictions. Just running all the updates on the server will add the update administration service. If they don't keep on top of approving updates then they can miss important security updates for Windows. Which is easy to forget without a dedicated IT person.

If they had a dedicated IT person then by all means they should go for the server.

 

[hakuryuu]

For 10 PCs, let's stick with SBS. You can have central control over accounts (passwords, complexity, etc), what the users can and cannot do, antivirus, etc. You name it and you can have control. You can even control patches to the machine.

And you can't with OS X Server? Because that must mean I must have been dreaming when I did all of those things with OS X Server.

I don't mean to say that with 10 PCs you shouldn't use SBS, because a windows server should be used with a windows network especially if it is the only one.

 

[belvdr]

And you can't with OS X Server? Because that must mean I must have been dreaming when I did all of those things with OS X Server.

I don't mean to say that with 10 PCs you shouldn't use SBS, because a windows server should be used with a windows network especially if it is the only one.

No need to be snotty.

For the network that is given, SBS is the right way to go, as OS X Server is not going to push patches or antivirus updates down to a Windows client, nor is it going to give you granular control over the Windows users and what they can do on their machine. So, you cannot do all those things with OS X Server in the scenario given.

 

[hakuryuu]

No need to be snotty.

For the network that is given, SBS is the right way to go, as OS X Server is not going to push patches or antivirus updates down to a Windows client, nor is it going to give you granular control over the Windows users and what they can do on their machine. So, you cannot do all those things with OS X Server in the scenario given.

Agreed. Though with some funky xml editing you can actually get some degree of control over windows machines, but it involves them already being part of an AD domain.

 

[Les Kern]

Just saying that a lot of the solutions are several orders of magnitude above what's required to get the job done. Of course for a gear head the sky is the limit, but negatively impacting productivity needs to be avoided at all costs as it's not play-land he's dealing with. I have been there/done that on so may ideas that were initially very interesting to ME, that at times I forgot that I was simply making the solution fit my own interests and not the interests of the users.
Example: For years now my whole organization was using OD/AD. 1,200 machines, 2500 users, and a seemingly infinite number of settings (granularity) that made day to day tech support a nightmare. Getting SW to work, user login times long due to increased wireless traffic for 700 laptops, permissions issues, backup strategies for 20 TB of data... it was all there. This summer the whole system will be scrapped. I did a test run on laptops that used Deep Freeze and parental controls, with several servers for imaging. Laptops were set up with easy links to home directories, which we kept. If a change was needed it could be done in no time at all. Set the image, push to the server, then image an entire cart in 20 minutes. Since that was done, tech support issues dropped by 90%. Maybe more.

 

[funfun166]

I did some research and I found that windows home server may be a good solution to me

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx

it seems easy to use with all the function I need, but I wonder why it is not popular and dell simply not bundle this software in their machine

 

[robert786]

Sounds like a poor design, with RAID 0 storage and 100Mb connections.

Hello sir actually sir its depends upon you that what type of server you want. Ya may be you didnt think that this is a good advice but many people are using this without having any problem.

 

[velocityg4]

I did some research and I found that windows home server may be a good solution to me

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx

it seems easy to use with all the function I need, but I wonder why it is not popular and dell simply not bundle this software in their machine

I don't know about all brands. But the HP's a customer asked me to look at had no video output (as with several other brands). They were basically a NAS running Windows instead of Linux or FreeBSD. But they have a 10 client limit so if you ever get another extra computer you are out of luck. I would stick with Win 7 as it would over more capability based on your stated needs. A regular NAS would also work I just think Windows 7 would be easier to configure.

 

[satcomer]

Plus check out the web sites:

1. AFP548 - Changing the world on server at a time - The site's title says it all for OS X people

2. MacWindows.com - The site is dedicated to help putting lone Macs into Windows' Domains. Their reader reports at top notched.

3. MacOSXHints.com - They have somany hints it is not funny.

Lastly getting the Mac Mini server would do in your case with only ten users. I then would get a Drobo for backup and file serving.

A local Mac shop will have Mac Consults on hand to help you setup.

 

[funfun166]

After doing some research, I think I would go for Windows Home Server

It is easy to setup and maintain....

Besides the functions I needs, WHS also automatically backup Server File, and Client PC
I can even ignore the setting up of Raid(I know Raid 1 and Raid 5, but I dont know how to set it up)

I think I will buy a dell server and install a WHS to it

 

[belvdr]

Hello sir actually sir its depends upon you that what type of server you want. Ya may be you didnt think that this is a good advice but many people are using this without having any problem.

When a drive fails (not if, but when), you'll have a major problem. Instead of just swapping a disk with no downtime, your system and clients will be down until you can recover the data (hopefully you are backing up this data). If that's acceptable risk, then you're set, but for storing a company's regularly used data, RAID 0 is not the way to go.

The only times I have used RAID 0 in production systems is for temporary tablespaces in Oracle. They are just used for temporary calculations, so if they go down, I can just recreate them.

After doing some research, I think I would go for Windows Home Server

It is easy to setup and maintain....

Besides the functions I needs, WHS also automatically backup Server File, and Client PC
I can even ignore the setting up of Raid(I know Raid 1 and Raid 5, but I dont know how to set it up)

I think I will buy a dell server and install a WHS to it

Good luck!

 

[Eric-PTEK]

Forget SBS and Home server.

I hate to even mention this because we sell a ton of these and nobody knows about them, not this exact model but one with a Quad Core Xeon:

http://www.shopping.hp.com/product/.../storefronts/597558-005?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

That includes the OS, Windows Foundation Server, MS's best product that no one knows about.

15 user hard limit, 1 physical CPU only(but can be multicore), and you have to buy it with specific equipment.

Everything Server 2008 R2 does minus HyperV and it works out to be $199, and that includes the user cals!

Install WSS(Windows SharePoint Services) 3.0 and you'll be good for group calendaring attached to Outlook.

So long as your Windows boxes are Win 7 Pro connect them to the domain and you'll be good to go.

Nothing comes close to that product in price and capability. I sell the Xeon model for a bit more, not sure if its available on HP's website or not.

Your looking at 1/2 the cost of SBS once you factor in hardware, CALS, etc.

Throw another 2 gigs of ram in it, buy the 3 year 24/7 4 hour response warranty and you'll be there under $1,400 shipped with tax.

Plus 2008 R2 is mindless to setup. Setting up DNS on 2003 was a cross between voodoo and magic

2008 you just install the role and it does the Forward Lookup Zones for you.

PM me if you want additional info....it's an incredible product and a perfect fit for what you need.

 

[Eric-PTEK]

After doing some research, I think I would go for Windows Home Server

It is easy to setup and maintain....

Besides the functions I needs, WHS also automatically backup Server File, and Client PC
I can even ignore the setting up of Raid(I know Raid 1 and Raid 5, but I dont know how to set it up)

I think I will buy a dell server and install a WHS to it

I had a customer who thought the same thing, WHS's dual drive setup is NOT RAID and he found that out the hard way.

IMO your better off with a 'real' server, setup a GPO to redirect all the users data to the server then properly back up the server.

It is a bit more work but the right way to do it. Any little time you save today will cost you big time later on if there is a problem.

 

[ChrisA]

Mac OS X Server is best used in an all-Mac office where you need a small server but don't want to introduce a second OS. But if you are introducing a second OS the best is Linuix, BSD or Solaris.

In all cases if you know nothing about the services you are setting up hire someone who does. If this is for a business, hopefully you are making money but you will not be if you are missing with a server.

One more thing... Have a GOOD backup plan. And that means more then simply copying data. What if someone steals the server? How many hours canyou be without it? have a plan to be fully recovered in that amount of time. Figure out a recovery plan BEFORE you become dependent on the server. Theft, fire, human error and software crashes are all things to plan for.