Building a server....need opinions.

[ereed]

Ok, I'm building a server for my small business which we work on cars, etc. The server will have 2 applications that are being used by 6 other machines. The programs are Quickbooks and Mitchell on Demand which is a database which we keep track of customers info, parts, etc that is on the server side and everything that all pcs change or add gets updated into the server. Is there another way to have pcs using software from server other than mapping to it? Its the only way I know of. The whole network is connected to gigabit switch. The 6 pcs are using old Pentium 4 technology with Win xp. I haven't decided on the OS of the server yet. But should I still use Win XP and have it mapped there or go with win 2003 server or is that overkill? The only thing I can think of for win 2003 server I would use is maybe creating domains for other 6 computers. Also if I decide to go with XP should I choose 64bit version just so I can have up to 8 gig of memory down the road or go with Vista 64 bit? Sorry, I'm kinda behind on OS these days and which is best for which application. The components I'm going to build the server are:

Mobo: ASUS P5K-VM G33 775
Memory: 4 gig DDR2 800 CORSAIR TWIN2X2048-6400
DVD Burner: SAMSUNG sata
Case: Coolermaster RC-1000-KSN1-GP BK
PSU: ANTEC NEOPOWER 650 watt
CPU: INTEL Core2 Duo E6850
Hard Drives: Two 150 Gig WD 10,000rpm 16MB SATA

[ereed]

Hmmm....no one? Did I post this in the wrong forum section?

[mairving]

Well I looked at your post earlier and started to respond but got distracted.

Some observations:
-I wouldn't go with a domain with only 6 users. If you get up in the 10-15 user range I would maybe consider it.
-Windows XP won't be able to use 4GB of RAM. It will only use about 3GB at the most. Server 2003 will use 4GB or more depending on the version that you get.
-Windows XP's performance sharing docs is not near as good as Windows 2003 Server.
-I would recommend at least something running RAID5. This is a good bit more expensive but will give you failover should one of the drives fail.
-You should have a good tape (best) or external drive backup.
-You probably won't really even need that much RAM to run but it is pretty cheap now.
-If you are running Quickbooks over the network then you will need to multi-user edition unless you only want one person at a time in it.
-In your case you are best just putting it on a share. You could go with Terminal Server or Citrix but you will make it more complex and expensive. It would be way overkill with that many users.

[ereed]

I was thinking of using something like Norton Ghost to do backups of the harddrive, or is there a better tool? I understand I didn't need 2003 server just for 6 computers and it would be expensive so I think I might go with XP 64 bit version so I can add more than 4 gig of memory since its so cheap now a days. I've had no problems with network mapping drive on old pc setup but was just wondering if there was a better way than mapping a drive?

[mairving]

Check to make sure your 2 apps will run on 64 bit XP. Quickbooks most likely will. I wouldn't be too sure about your other one though.

Not really a better way to map drives.

[ereed]

I have two 150 gb 10,000 rpm drives. Should I raid it or just do backup on second drive? Or should I setup the first drive normally with everything and updates on it and copy to second drive and use that one in case drive one fails and use external as backups only? I don't want to be doing full backups of everything on the drive each time, just the 2 applications on the server needs back up daily. What software do you recommend?

[mairving]

RAID 5 uses 3 drives and you will need a RAID controller. It gives greater redundancy because it generally uses 3 drives. If one drive fails then everything still works. RAID 1 will give you a little bit of security but is a bit slower and it seems a bit more prone to problems. Do your backups at night, automate them and do a full backup at least once a week. You can do incremental or differential during the week if you want. I would probably do a full backup though. If you go with tapes I generally use 9 tapes, one each for M-Th and a separate one for each Friday of the month. Take the Friday tape and keep it somewhere secure in case the building burns down.

I have always used Veritas Backup Exec but it can be a Royal pain sometimes. Retrospect and Acronis are also pretty good. I would be a bit hesitant to use Ghost since often times restoring involves a single file not a whole system. I would also create a shared document folder on the server for users to save files. If you don't and their hard drive crashes you are SOL.