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Ask Slashdot: Stepping Down From an Office Server To NAS-Only?
First time accepted submitter rawket.scientist writes "I'm a full time lawyer and part time nerd doing most of the IT support for my small (~10 person) firm. We make heavy use of our old Windows Server 2003 machine for networked storage, and we use it as a DNS server (by choice, not necessity), but we don't use it for our e-mail, web hosting, productivity or software licensing. No Sharepoint, no Exchange, etc. Now old faithful is giving signs of giving out, and I'm seriously considering replacing it with a NAS device like the Synology DS1512+ or Dell PowerVault NX200. Am I penny-wise but pound foolish here? And is it overambitious for someone who's only dabbled in networking 101 to think of setting up a satisfactory, secure VPN or FTP server on one of these? We've had outside consultants and support in the past, but I always get the first 'Why is it doing this?' call, and I like to have the answer, especially if I was the one who recommended the hardware."
I know "Cloud service" is such an awful term, but if you frequently access the data from outside the network, why not consider having the data online somewhere?
Besides that, a NAS should do just fine.
Either build on (FreeNas) yourself or buy one of the numerous premade systems.
The VPN could be established on network level and not the NAS itself.
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
I highly recommend nas4free. Easy setup all around including windows shares. Plus zfs is a big plus and high on the geek scale
I just did the same for a client who had downsized. We moved from a rackmount Xserve and RAID solution down to a Mac mini server (for DNS and few other tasks) and a Synology NAS. It was my first Synology, but I was very pleased. It was fairly easy to configure, and has been trouble free so far. It offers excellent outside access via web interface, and has a built in SSL VPN. The largest issue I had with it was configuring a rotating backup. I ended up using the Mac mini for the backup. The client's been very pleased with the solution, which sits on a desk. The server room has been cleared out.
My experiences with a QNAP TS-459U-SP+ are quite good. With the QPKG-Extensions, you even get non-standard services installed.
I would still recommend to have a small 19 inch rack (on wheels) for noise protection and to have some space for expansion.
I recently installed a small DS212+ for a small office of 5 using around 1tb of data. The NAS was chosen as a low cost option but after running it for a few weeks it's actually better than a windows box for this use case, mostly because of its excellent software and ease of use. It has a built in VPN server and access to a host of 3rd party apps. Highly recommended.
Have a look at the products from QNAP. I just purchased one for home use and am blown away by the functionality. Out of the box it does way more than we've even thought of implementing at work. The web based user interface is very easy too.
If you just want networked storage, anything will do. Don't forget backups (several of those, some offline, some in a safe place), access control, intrusion detection... Probably get RAID too (RAID is *NOT* a backup) for higher availability and uptime.
You mention stuff your server doesn't do. Does it mean you'd like to do it ? Are you doing it another way ?
If you work in a law office (you said you're a lawyer, not that you're in a law office ?) are there specific legal requirements regarding auditing, security, confidentiality ... ?
Are you OK with people making backups of files and leaving with them when they are fired or resign ? ...
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
A NAS is the perfect for this use-case. I wouldn't go "cloud" for the primary source though because it would just slow things down, and it may not work for you depending on what applications you're using. I don't see why you're doing DNS internally? That seems unnecessary -- unless the box is also your domain controller for AD? I would definitely go with something dedicated, but not consumer-level. So stay away from the D-LINK/Netgear NAS devices. I've used the QNAP 419P in the past and it was decent, but under-powered (couldn't reach gigabit speeds on transfers because the CPU the NAS was getting pegged out). I think any of the current Intel based QNAPs would be a good choice to look into -- they had a great web management interface and lots of options. Doing VPN straight to the box seems a bit out there, but the QNAP had a nice web-based file manager that you could expose externally via SSL.
I can't see why you'd want a rack for a 10 person office, if it's not needed.... ? But this shouldn't go in a closet w/o ventilation either.
You're barely using the capabilities of the machine you have now and you don't have any reason to keep the server. Get a decent VPN-capable router or pay $20/year for LogMeIn Hamachi if that's a need and combine it with a Synology or QNAP NAS. Those have firmware that's relatively straightforward to support and if there's ever a need for more advanced file services, they're already baked into the device.
Do make sure you buy decent disk drives for it. "Green" or "Eco" drives from WD or Seagate work for shit in disk arrays.
This really won't be a downgrade for you. It will actually probably make your life easier.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
The main benefit you would lose by changing to a NAS is the centralized domain authentication, assuming you have one. If you don't have a domain then a NAS would work great. I've setup a couple of Synology before, they perform well and are easy to manage.
Do you have an Active Directory domain? Domain users and groups are much easier to manage for file access than a bunch of local accounts. I'd keep using a full server just for that, but that depends on your security model.
Most of the NAS boxes are embedded linux boxes, usually running on a low power CPU of some kind...
With most of these its possible to get shell access and install whatever you want on them, although for things like setting up a vpn on it you will probably need kernel level support which may or may not be present in the stock kernel supplied with the device.
That said, presumably you have some kind of router or nat device too, which will almost certainly have some level of vpn capability by default.
Running a DNS server should be trivial.. I personally run a couple of buffalo 4-drive nas boxes, and just looking through the package list i see bind and dnsmasq, both perfectly capable dns servers depending on your requirements.
I do take issue with the term "secure vpn", nothing is totally secure as such a name implies.
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Since you're already considering NAS it means you're not running client-server apps or databases on the server side. Why not go the full monty and put your data into the cloud using Dropbox, Google Drive? If you have less than 100G you can spend about $100 per year. You will want to publish some process guidelines in your ops manual, but this could work for you very economically. Although I am not completely familiar with it (and not affiliated in any way) Clio practice management http://www.goclio.com/ is another way you can put the management of your practice into the cloud with matter, document and contract management.
I've been using a Synology DS1010+ for a few years. They are affordable, easy to setup, and come with a good number of features. There is a VPN server, but there are also a few simpler methods for remote access on the Synology. If you mainly need remote access to data on the Synology, the Cloud Station software is simple and you can work with files offline. They also provide easy to use mobile apps for remote access. Its a good device to keep files on your client machines backed up. If you were comfortable with your dabbling in networking, you'll do fine with a Synology.
I may be influenced by the fact that my firm's two offices are in New Orleans and Pensacola, two highly hurricane-prone areas. As a result of hurricanes, disaster preparedness has been etched into the firm's thinking (as well as my own - I was a software engineer during Katrina and worked on moving services to the cloud during that time - I am now a lawyer).
Anyway, why not go to the cloud? Something like Jungle Disk would replace a shared disk. There are also products more focused on legal work, such as Netdocuments. Of course, cost is always an issue, but Jungle Disk is relatively cheap.
As a plus, cloud systems let the attorneys work from home without needing a VPN client.
Stick to what you do and hire someone to replace your server. I don't know how many times I've been called to a place to fix an issue and I find out they built the network themselves. Take my advice: stick to a server or hire a professional and concentrate on being a lawyer.
Windows seems to get more unstable with age. I'm not sure how your server is set up, but we used a small drive for the os and a 4 drive raid-5 for the information. We made an image of the os once it was solid and just reimage when it gets flaky. A dedicated option like you mentioned above is probably easier if this isn't your dedicated job. Make sure to get a x86 system then you could add/develop plugins more easily if you wanted more out of the nas. Just be careful not to overload the system.
Having used various Synology NAS devices over the years, I can recommend them. Although if you buy any of their devices that can have a memory upgrade, I recommend following their requirements to the letter. We have had an instance where using memory that on paper was identical, turned out to by slightly different and bricked the whole system (Synology, to their credit, replaced the system at no cost).
As with any device on site, backups that go off-site are very important. If you don't do this, then the cloud option as a backup is a good idea. If you choose the cloud option as a primary, remember that all devices that get you to the cloud (Local switch, Firewall, router, ISP feed etc) are all now single points of failure that can cause you to lose access to your data for a period of time.
If at first you don't succeed, so much for skydiving.
Almost every law office I can think of that I've worked with over the years has had some software package that needs a "server" pc to run it. Many of the firms I work with use timematters, quickbooks, softpro(which you could get by with just copying the files to a network location once it is installed), etc. A single 2008r2 server running active directory with redirected desktops and documents could be a good option. It can handle internal dns, gives you plenty of backup options including the built in image based backup and gives you the option of installing apps that need installing. Sure if you use something like quickbooks or peachtree you can have a computer in the office host it but then you start running into issues of remembering which services you need to reinstall if you replace it or when issues come up. Maybe ever server essentials although I haven't used it.
Server for storage? For a law firm? Get an Areca 5040 or better. You want something on an enterprise level for performance, features and durability. The Areca line has it in spades. Don't confuse enthusiast hardware with professional/enterprise hardware. Actually you should concentrate on SAS hard drives as well. While the 5040 is SAS capable, Areca has higher end units on the SAS side that are also SATA III capable, which also means the units are later designs.
Find out what you need to do, first, I just spent a disastrous contract job with a company that said "get us bids, then we'll write the specs". And all the groundwork that was necessary for *whichiver bid they accepted*, including storage integration cleanup and getting formerly neglected projects onto backup, met tooth and nail resistance and insistent project review from the current IT staff who had *no idea* and couldn't be bothered to know what their current system did, they were "too busy". They had enough time to complain bitterly about how their old debris was better, when it didn't meet the most basic requirements of reliable backup, recoverability, or supportable technologies.
For someone being paid hourly and who was smart enough to write in the inevitable support calls as billable time, it made me a lot of money, but they made themselves unhappy because they acted like Java programmers. There's an unstated, unstable, never documented API, and they'd just throw it over the wall in one of their endless meetings of people who have nothing to do with the work, to someone in their group who didn't get to go to the meeting, and toss it out to me. "And Then A Miracle Occurs." And boy, did I make miracles occur behind the scenes!!! I'm looking forward like hell to when these clowns go to the Cloud. I am going to make *so much money* translating their last rounds of ill-conceived fractureware practices into the sort of large-scale, but limited API features that the Cloud is actually good at.
In your case, if I had time to take on the job, I'd separate security functions such as VPN from the storage system. Assess if you're an all CIFS storage shop, how much you need, and what your backup and archival storage requirements are. (In a law firm, that archival storage requirement is critical.) Assess your database and email storage backup requirements. (Again, as a law firm, your email storage requirements are important.) And assess ease of recovery of lost data versus the risk of having material your clients would prefer did not show up in a subpoena. (Lawyer/client privilege is vital, so is having only *half* the material show up in the subpoena, the half that makes your client look guilty, without the evidence that clears them.)
NAS's work very well: most of them are Samba behind the scenes, and many of them do NFS as well as CIFS. Don't do that: the privileges for CIFS access and NFS access are very, very different and had to resolve in real life. NAS's also work great for off-site backup: simply swap backup storage devices and take one offsite, then swap regularly.
Think hard about that VPN technology. All Windows boxes support PPTP built-in, and despite the great cries of "oooohhhh, IPSEC is so much better" I've seen no reliable reports that there's a genuine performance or security improvment. The big risks are that the software won't work (which is extremely common with IPSEC and peculiar Windows flavors still in use), and that people will leave themselves logged in with their screens unlocked or their remote systems rootkitted. (VPN's do nothing to address this: good firewall management of the VPN connection does, and this has *nothing to do* with the underlying VPN technology.) IPSEC supports lots of expensive RSA key technologies that you can spend a lot of money for, and which most clients *HATE, HATE, HATE* because they lose those damn funky keychain fobs, which could have been designed better by a bunch of random number generators taking a Java garbage collection break from writing Hamlet.
Since you want to be the IT admin guy off the side of your desk, the short answer is - can you manage it on a NAS? If not then stick with what you know and focus on your day job - the first time you have to spend 2 days fixing or configuring something that's new you'll have blown any cost savings from getting a server anyway. I run what you're describing, though I let the router handle VPN access. If you stick with Windows Server, everything you want to try and do will have a solution you can find in 2 mins on Google, if you go onto a proprietary NAS you will end up working around a lot of things to get them how you need them - Offline files for your users will be a little bit cranky, how you do backups will be limited to the NAS' interface, if you want your security settings 'just-so' (presumably important in your industry) you'll need to make sure the NAS software can cope with that.
Legal precedence has already been established that if you do not control your data...then you lose control of it.
Meaning that Google, MS, DropBox, NextFlyByNightCloudService, etc now have rights that you gave away by not fully reading, now you know why, any T&C.
The MegaUpload also should how easily you can lose your data, much less any cyber-snooping that may happen.
I hope as a lawyer [may different types] that you google and nexus this issue before considering it.
Last thought: what is a VPN tied to a NAS box but YOUR CLOUD. [yes, there are free linux cloud server box apps]
I don't know if you (or any of your staff) have ever used this feature, but your Windows file server allows you to get previous versions of the files stored on the server. This has come in handy a couple of times when we changed something and wanted to look at an older version of the same file. I don't think this feature is part of a standard NAS. (We use a Windows Server for the ordinary tasks, and a Synology NAS for backup and long term storage.)
If your Windows Server software is not an OEM version, you can just buy new server hardware and install the same software on that. Nowadays you can get really cheap well performing brand name servers. This means that you don't have to struggle with learning how to manage a new version of Windows Server or a completely different NAS.
He's a lawyer. The cloud is nice for a lot of things but for sensitive, legal, or financial data I would say stay away. Way too many legal issues over proper protection of data.
Simple fact: Cloud is limited by the bandwidth of your internet link!!
It is not uncommon to have 100Mbps LAN (or even 1Gb/s) in an office. How fast IS your Internet?
You might look into Thecus. I've had the N7700 for about 3 years now on the recommendation of someone who has a N5400 (and had it for a few years before I got mine) and (after I got mine) got his sister to buy a N7700PRO that he manages for her. There is no built-in DNS or VPN support, but some quick Google searches show that someone built a DNS module and it looks like there might be a VPN module too (I haven't used either so I can't speak to if or how well they work).
I did have my motherboard die 2 months out of warranty, but their replacement cost was reasonable, they took care of it fast, and they upgraded it to the new N7700PRO board for me.
When I initially set mine up I know they natively supported a Windows format, ext3, and xfs (experimental at the time). If I recall correctly it supports SMB, NFS, AFP, and iSCSI for remote connections. I set mine up using iSCSI so I could format it to a different format (which means my client systems have to talk to the server that manages it rather than directly to the Thecus itself).
3 years ago their interface was horrible, but it's seen a lot of improvements over the years and is much nicer now.
I'm more familiar with Synology NASes (albeit on the consumer side) and Dell servers (instead of that NAS). Coming from a Linux sysadmin background, I was impressed with how the Synology combined pretty easy GUI management while not preventing you from doing stuff on the back end Linux side. You can play around with Synology's web interface yourself online. It's pretty cool what they can do with a bunch of javascript.
These things are built for file serving, and it's about as easy as it gets to set up. They also package all sorts of stuff as add-on services, though I don't personally use DNS. My complaint with the home-designed versions in the past is that they skimped on RAM, making them less useful for any kind of real server application. The higher end models like the 1512+ do better, and for just DNS and file serving it should be more than sufficient. Don't expect it to compete with a $1500 server in terms of computational performance, obviously, but it should be able to pretty much max out the drives' performance.
I had a drive die on my personal NAS, and the process went exactly as it should: it emailed me saying there might be problems; I did an extended SMART test via the GUI to double check it; I obtained an RMA for the drive and installed it; it restored to the new drive without incident.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
I'm curious as to what the business case is to replace your current server? You say that it is on it's "last legs" but didn't say exactly what this means. Is it end-of-life, running out of room, running slow? End-of-life definitely means replacement but the other two are solvable.
There are fundamental questions that you need to answer before deciding to select a replacement using different technology. For example, have you factored in the replacement for any add-on software (i.e. anti-virus, encryption, backup, etc.)? Are you willing to spend time and resources to learn how to operate, maintain, and manage a new system? How well is the vendor support rated and are they available on weekends, after-hours?
Microsoft Server may not be the most efficient OS for file serving, but it is the easiest to support.
I would definitely recommend buying a piece of hardware that has out-of-band management, assuming that you have remote access (i.e. VPN) to your office. This allows remote access to the hardware when the OS is not working properly. Saves having to run into the office to troubleshoot a problem.
I haven't seen it here, but you could pick up something like a dell optiplex 755 for dirt cheap on ebay, put a raid card in it, a couple 1tb hard drives, and put linux on it, and make shares using samba. That's exactly what we do at our IT shop, and it works fine for us. We install windows servers all the time, but we just don't need it, and our email is gmail, our web services are VPS servers at a host. If you are worried about replacement parts you could just order two of the exact same machine and keep one dark :)
My suggestion no matter what people here say is to then do a backup to the cloud using Jungledisk as a client, and Amazon or Rackspace as a storage provider. If you generate your security keys and opt not to give them to Jungledisk the keys to store for you then I'm not exactly sure how they are going to cough up your data to the "wrong people." The only people that could legally get them to turn over data would be the feds, and that would be your dream since it would mean they invaded your client attorney privilege thus pretty much self destructing any case they might have had. If they were going to get your data from a cloud service, it would be a lot easier to just bust into your office, but that doesn't happen at least by the government as it's self defeating.
The main benefit you would lose by changing to a NAS is the centralized domain authentication, assuming you have one. If you don't have a domain then a NAS would work great. I've setup a couple of Synology before, they perform well and are easy to manage.
That was true a few years ago, but newer Synology boxes can be LDAP servers. My DS211 supports this, but my older DS207 does not.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Everyone's saying "cloud, cloud," but I don't think that's necessarily a great idea. Why? Latency, for one...being a law firm, I assume your primary application for users is Microsoft Word. So, imagine that you have a Word document open, not on the other end of a switched 100MB or 1GB link, but at the other end of a 30MB connection that you share with everyone else in the office. You double-click on the document, and wait while it is downloaded. Now, mind you, you also have to think about the autosave feature, but you can set that to save locally to avoid any issues with this problem. But each time you hit 'save,' that document goes back up to the server.
There is enormous potential for trouble here. Word is not network-aware in ways that will help manage this latency and slow activity...and the user experience will suffer. I've done IT work for law firms, and trust me...as you must already know, lawyers are not usually accepting of things like Word seeming to lock up for several seconds every time they open, close, or save a document. And this doesn't even take into account the issue of making your entire infrastructure beholden to that one Internet link...if it goes down, you lose access to everything. That's not good.
I do wonder why you would drop a centralized point of authentication (which is what you have, running Windows Server), which gives you the ability to have role-based access and easy resetting of passwords as needed (again, I have worked with a lot of lawyers in my time). If I were in your shoes, I would go the other way, keeping the server going and making more use of what it has to offer (like some very helpful Group Policy settings). But I don't know your exact situation, skillset, or requirements, so that may be off base. I would definitely NOT use cloud as your primary storage, however.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
At my office, I set up a Thecus 4-bay NAS as our server. The boss is just too damned cheap to buy a real domain server or "professional" OS workstations. Configured as 2X 1TB WD RE4 series RAID 1. I back up the data across the network to another station that has an external HDD. The NAS device also has a neat scheduled power on/off feature to give it a rest when people aren't at work (our last one didn't have the scheduled power option and blew up after about a year of always-on). I schedule it to power down Friday night & come back early Monday. I think when all was said and done, the unit plus HDD's ran us around $700-800.
We are a civil engineering firm with 10 (at one point 25) employees. We handle pretty damned large files with Autocad, and the NAS seems to handle that pretty well.
I'm a full time IT consultant and run the legal department for our admittedly small firm. We've recently been sued for breech of contract and was wondering if you could suggest the best approach to defend ourselves. Hmm, maybe not don't you think? I probably don't need to tell you that records and files are a critical asset to the success of any legal firm. Your requirements for security, confidentiality, recoverability are core to your business and each of these need to understood before selecting the right solution for your firm, and to be honest that requires the someone with the appropriate knowledge and expertise to advise you. I'm sorry to say, that in my experience, doctors and lawyers are the worst offenders for not bringing in outside expertise to advise them on technology issues. It's frustrating because they, more than anyone, know the value of professional expertise. Spend some money to obtain professional IT advise (just like you expect people to spend money on legal advice). It's better than having to explain to the partners how someone hacked your "secure" FTP server and posted all your client records to Wikileaks.
...what are you going to do for that?
I'd replace Server 2003 with Foundation Server, SBS Essentials, or regular Server 2008...
End of the day, no NAS can replicate Active Directory and Group Policy...
As a small business, my Synology was the best IT purchase I ever made. It has never once failed to deliver in every way – from disk failure to remote management via browser, iPhone or Nexus 7. It stores all my data and the DSM software comes with a lot of apps. It's simply a feature-rich product with solid performance.
It's weird, cause I rarely can mark a computer product 5-stars but I really can't think of a real reason I don't absolutely love my DiskStation.
Bottom line: Buy One.
it's a great way to configure all your Windows machines without having to go and physically touch each computer.
That said, there's nothing wrong with using an AD domain controller for that purpose and then having a NAS for file storage, especially if the NAS can integrate with AD so you can get the permissions set easily.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I suggest taking a look at Windows Server 2012 File Server role - W2K12 - deduplication is an in box feature
- SMB Multichannel - better performance uisng 4 TCP channels
- Storage Spaces - SAN like features with no special hardware (this is not dynamic volume)
- Thin provisioning - using Spaces, Windows can create TP LUNs
- NFS 4 server - in box role in W2K12
- Resilient File System (ReFS) - high degree of compatibility with the most common NTFS features, but has resiliency and scalability features that go beyond NTFS
- Windows Server Backup - now supports backup to the cloud (in box feature)
- Support for Hyper-V VMs - now Hyper-V supports running VMs using a file server and SMB 3.0
- Scale-out - with more than one server, File Server can be configured in a scale out mode for better scalability
Sources:
http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Overview-File-Server-Role-Windows-Server-8-Failover-Clustering.html
http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/windows-server/top-ten-windows-server-2012-storage-enhancements-143157
http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsserver/archive/2012/03/28/microsoft-online-backup-service.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/b/bettertogether/archive/2012/07/21/windows-server-2012-part2-virtualization-enhancements-scalability-amp-flexibility.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/windows-server/2012-editions.aspx
Full disclosure: I do work for Microsoft. I am a senior program manager on the Virtual Machine Manager team. I work on Storage Automation using SNIA SMI-S/ My blog is: http://blogs.technet.com/b/hectorl
It depends on what you use the system for. If it's only for simple file sharing, then a NAS would be fine. But if you want to use the server to manage updates and backups, which you should, then consider a Windows SBS 2011 Essentials server. It is a bit pricey but it pulls backups from all of your systems, and you can set up a WSUS server so you only have to authorize updates once--then each system will pull the update from the server when it's time to shut down. It definitely makes life a lot easier compared to individually managing ten systems.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Just look at a buffalo NAS.
Really easy, straight forward, reliable and cheap.
This is a fairly clear case where Samba would be of use for LAN access. It's quite simple to set up and runs very reliably on top of your favorite distro.
For remote sharing, SFTP would be the way to go. SSHFS is a clever trick for very user-friendly remote access.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I have a Buffalo TeraStation that I use just for a NAS to store backups on, but I did notice it has quite a few powerful features that made me think, "hey, I ~could~ use this along with a decent router to pretty much meet the needs of a SOHO"
I certainly think you ~could~ go this route, but honestly, I don't think you should. Here's why: those NAS units are pretty chill and the good ones have some kind of self-healing/recovery option ... like my TeraStation's Raid5. I've had a drive fail and it was a fairly painless but also quite LONG process to repair. Drive died, bought replacement, slammed it in... the work was simple, but it was nearly 24 hours before it was all green and fully up to speed.
Had that been my main server, I wouldn't have been too happy with that long of an outage.
However, in my situation, the NAS was just a backup, my WIn2008 server was on-line and fully available and working the whole time.
If this were an actual office, I'd have had a second win2008 server as a secondary domain controller and would have the important data set up on a DFS and that would handle file sharing. The NAS would be used as backup.
How many days could your office reasonably go with your main shared drives off-line for repair/reconstruction - even if you eventually got all your data back, it seems like lost time in a law office would be a BAD THING.
The Digital Sorceress
"I'm a full time lawyer and part time nerd doing most of the IT support for my small (~10 person) firm.
As a full time lawyer, I would expect your hourly bill rate to be far in excess of even the most expensive IT consultant. Why then, are you doing ANYTHING other than legal work and growing the firm's business? Why are you wasting time/money on IT matters, no matter how much you enjoy them?
Is this your firm or are you an under-supervised, salaried associate? What practice area? What geographic area? All of the successful law firms that I have dealt with have had founders and senior partners drumming up new business on a near full time basis, triaging new client matters and handing the work off to junior partners or associates and paralegals that are working 12 hour days(at least) and billing 16 hours(at least).
In exchange for an in depth answer, I'll offer some free IT consulting. Stick with a server. Assuming that you replace with a NAS of equal performance and redundancy levels, the server will not be much more expensive. But, the server will offer far more features. Features, that even though you don't use now, you will likely need in the future. Another likely requirement for a server is practice management software, your firm's size is on the cusp of needing such software and they will require a Windows server.
Finally, don't look at IT cost as something to be cut or feared. Most firms would be completely incapable of functioning without IT these days. So treat IT as an important cost of doing business. For a firm your size, an annual budget equal to that of a minimally waged intern or law clerk, will get you top of the line tech and support. Now get back to lawyering.
I work at a small law firm too, and Clio (this is the first time I've heard of it) seems interesting, I feel much safer using software that's been tried and tested -- amicus, worldox and timeslips. My understanding is that you can add web functionality to timeslips so you can access files from an iPad or other mobile device. But they're still in your office under your control. Seems much more the ideal situation that relying on a third party to handle that, not to mention such business issues such as what are clios financial resources like? Will we get to the office one day and get an email saying "were sorry, but we went out of business. Your data is inaccessible." or even "we got bought by xyz corp and in order to turn us profitable, they've cut out some of the security related expenses we'd been incurring". That sort of thing. Pure conjecture, though...
Instead of a Nas I would go with a windows server foundation set up. can be had for the same price as a quality Nas device and you get a full 2008r2 server minus Hyperv and a max of 15 concurrent users. You still have AD,DNS,DHCP a install-able platform for office software Quickbooks, backups and what not. Plus never discount the value of a extra system in the office you can remote to if there are problems.
everyone these days is cloud this and cloud that well internet still goes down services have issues if you need your data and you control the hardware you always have options. office burns down restore your backups in the cloud move your server COLO etc. In the are way or the highway of the cloud options are gold.
Among other obvious reasons:
1. The cloud services you mentioned aren't even close to secure enough for legally sensitive documents.
2. Judges are unlikely to accept "my Internet connection was down" as a valid reason for not filing documentation properly.
3. Legal documents are written using serious software, not trivial web apps. They have numerous technical requirements and typographical conventions that must be strictly adhered to, in some cases to the point where courts will specify the precise font you must use for all submissions, for example. You don't write this sort of thing in Google Docs, where the concept of a cross-reference has yet to appear and the numbering styles available are one small step past "numbered" and "not numbered".
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The first thing is to Blow the dust out before doing anything else then as you've already got Sunk Cost into the server, I'd look at it from the cost perspective of Repair/Replacement before doing anything else. Personally, I suspect that the real problem is that the drives are reaching the replacement point and though they're expensive right now, I'd suggest looking at at least a 1TB model such as the Samsung F3 or WD Black for reliability. On the software front, if you've been using Windows for a while, you're pretty familiar with it, so I'd stick with that instead of trying to learn something new unless your reasoning is to move to something with less admin needs, then a good NAS is viable. This also works if you're looking at saving money on power as a NAS should use far less then the server does.
If you want something new to play with, repair/replace the failing hardware - probably the drives/psu - and install either Free or OpenBSD on the server. Otherwise for reduced admin/learning curves stick with the known Windows as you've already learned most of what's needed.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
HP DL 160 refurb with a 3 year, should set you back $2k tops with 2, 160GB Drives in it.
That gives you active directory, event logging and e-mail alerts if say someone has disk errors on their machine so you can catch a drive failure early, actual document security, encryption, etc all in one machine.
Then buy the cheapest 2-drive E-sata NAS you can find on Newegg and toss your data onto it in RAID1.
You don't need to blow $600/drive for enterprise storage but FFS, whatever you do don't get rid of the Windows 2k3 server just because it's old. 2K8 has a lot of things that your office may find REALLY handy and having a server may enable you to do cool things like install VOIP software and record all conversations.
DO NOT think "I have X requirements, how can I do them cheaply".
Think 'I have X Requirements, but know of Y, Z, T, B, N, and M and out of a few of those some would be easy to set up, reliable, and save massive amounts of time. So how do I do THAT cheaply?"
Question to OP: Are your workstations joined to the domain and using the 2K3 server as a login server? Are login scripts, group policy etc used on the ten computers? Or are they all standalone?
If they are standalone, replacing the 2K3 with a NAS I'd say is a very good option.
On a consulting basis I've converted a couple Windows SBS environments over to using a NAS. Users have been very happy with the change and these devices have performed well and been able to take over the function of the SBS provided they weren't using Sharepoint/Exchange.
I have to say, the QNAP and Synology are very effective, and easy to setup appliances. A typical slightly tech-savvy person could set this up without a problem -- it's little more difificult than a home router. The interface is very intuitive.
I've found the QNAP is a bit more robust in its feature set, and if you go with the Pro+ models (starting at like $400-$500 w/o disks) based on the intel Atom processor. This is like getting a linux box with an x86_64 architecture. The thing can run a mySQL server/webserver etc.
After the initial setup, the NAS appliances need little/no maintenance. It can handle its own backup, or you can plugin an external disk and copy the array to it, alert you via-email if there's a drive/SMART issue,
Now, if you do already have a domain/ADS environment, you'll have to bring in some slim little machine to replace the 2K3 server as a Domain Controller. Both QNAP and Synology can join a domain and use AD logins and groups as credentials, making login seamless if the computers are domain members (no prompt for login/password etc)
Otherwise, you'd have to unjoin all the computers from the domain and make them standalone, and then migrate profiles back to local etc -- quite an IT expedition.
If this is your situation, I'd recommend going ahead and upgrading to a 2K8 R2 server on a slim machine, and perhaps just using that rather than a separate NAS appliance.
We also went through this a while ago, but the other way around. After kitting out a small office network, the one purchase we really regretted was the NAS (a Cisco-branded device, which in fact is a rebadged QNAP).
The hardware has not failed and supports hot-swapping drives if necessary, but those are about the only good things I have to say about this unit. It is in all other respects just a very limited and relatively expensive Linux server, where essential operations like scheduling regular, secure off-site back-ups are absurdly difficult, and where you can't easily install other server software (e-mail, calendars, DHCP, RADIUS, whatever) unless whoever supplied your NAS happens to make some sort of plug-in available for their particular style of firmware. Even Cisco gave up trying to provide any meaningful support in this area within a few months of the device launching, eventually just providing a mechanism for people to upgrade their firmware to QNAP's own.
When we were investigating options for a new device earlier this year, it looked like more recent NAS devices from other suppliers were little better, maybe differing in some of the details but essentially still the same old story.
My conclusion: NAS devices are for non-technical home users who want to plug in and go. If you're running a real business with serious requirements, and you have moderate Linux skills and/or a modest budget to bring in someone who does when you need them, then buy a real server with a specification suitable for your requirements. There is absolutely no advantage to buying a NAS for someone in that position, IME.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
With a generic OS you can do full disk encryption to protect the data in case the server is stolen. Truecrypt works on windows, probably even with software RAID, but I haven't tried it with RAID. If you do this, remember to encrypt the backups as well (in fact, even if you don't encrypt the main server, it's important to encrypt the backups as they can be easily stolen). Overall, I don't know what to recommend. A NAS box is easier to manage, but less flexible. If you only access a couple of GB of data frequently, you can add enough RAM to fit all the frequently accessed files, for better performance (e.g. prevent delays when opening a file).
A huge old Windows 2003 machine is sucking power like a highly paid prostitute. And you aren't using exchange? Why did you even consider Windows 2003 when you could have built/bought a Linux/Unix based server for quite a bit less. I mean, the license per seat of a Windows server is probably upwards of $1K for about 10 people. Isn't it? I know Dell and others were selling non-Windows servers over 10 years ago.......
I'd wholeheartedly recommend getting a NAS. I have a Synology DS1512 that I got in April, upgrading from a ReadyNAS NV that I had for 5 years. Nothing against ReadyNAS/Netgear, that unit was robust and I never lost a single byte of data even though a few hard drives failed on it (gotta love RAID5). It is now serving as a backup device for my Synology unit.
Anyhow, the Synology unit is LIGHTYEARS ahead of the Netgear stuff in terms of software and hardware. They have a whole line of stuff from 2 disk units to like 16 disk units. All of them run the same software. They are easy to configure, and maintain. You can easily set it up to be able to share files over a VPN with it. Or your can log in via the web and get documents. Or have it stream music and videos over the internet for you. Macs, PCs, whatever can hook up to it. They even have iOS/Android apps to monitor or access files from it (like a streaming audio app, video app, etc).
The software and hardware is sound. I had a flakey DS1512 initially, buying it like the day after it was available. Some sort of ROM patch was needed. Synology was fairly good about providing me with a replacement (I did have to complain a lot to their support people). And the current 4.1 beta of their software is causing random crashes on my unit......but it is BETA after all. The release version is rock solid (DSM4). My DS1512 was running that since I got it and it never had any issues at all.
I'd say that hands down, when I was researching a replacement to my aged ReadyNAS NV, the Synology software and hardware was the winner. And it has proven so far to be true. And I still have two more drive bays to fill on it......;-)
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Probably already stated somewhere here. Just use a service like Dropbox. Even better Dropbox + Yammer for internal collaboration and communication. You'll get much better functionality with replication to laptops and out of office PCs and you won't have to worry about a single device crashing and losing all of your data.
Have a professional set up a real server with SBS 2011. You can migrate to it with no trouble so your current environment stays the same. The admin panel in SBS is a lot like the web interface of a NAS box, it's designed for people who have absolutely no idea what the hell they're doing.
3. Legal documents are written using serious software, not trivial web apps. They have numerous technical requirements and typographical conventions that must be strictly adhered to, in some cases to the point where courts will specify the precise font you must use for all submissions, for example. You don't write this sort of thing in Google Docs, where the concept of a cross-reference has yet to appear and the numbering styles available are one small step past "numbered" and "not numbered".
This!
We have fifteen years worth of investment in carefully styled MS Word documents. Format matters, not just for courts, but for clients who expect a certain level of professionalism and consistency. Telling a client, "Yeah it looks all funny because we decided to start using iGoogleBook's TweetDocs and haven't got it all figured out yet," does not inspire confidence. Also, our best typists are 80 wpm and/or using keyboard shortcuts as a matter of spinal reflex. Cloud document services just aren't there yet.
John Hancock wuz here.
I'd look at pfsense and untangle for a gateway, FreeNAS for a file sharing box, and then think about how you can convert a large single point of failure into a ton of tiny points of failure that are easy to fix or replace but can still provide all the features you need.
I have a pfsense gateway/firewall with some strict inbound rules to allow for our VPN, and internally I have a few routers running dd-wrt OpenVPN (Linksys 320N) and for wireless internet but no internal access, big (400N). The 320N runs a broadcom chipset, but is VLAN capable with dd-wrt, which is why I chose it over tomato. I have another router with a USB port (E4200v2) which I use as a local file server (via a USB HDD) and print server, and I have a small, two HDD gigabit NAS that allows anonymous file dumping, ssh, file encryption, RAID 0 or 1, user blogs/websites/photosharing with php and plesk, and some finer management services connected to the 320N, which is directly behind the gateway. The computers themselves, most running some form of linux, are networked over a switch in their own subnet which then connects to the 320N to allow bridging over VPN. It's not simple, but it works, and the worst I've had to do is reset a router and reload a backup of its setting if something stops working. Total, it's cost was about $600, but if I'd built a single server to replace the gateway and routers, I could have saved $200, albeit with more time spent on configuration and troubleshooting.
I went a bit overboard in buying one, but I'm really liking it now. I bought a DS1512+ and five 3TB hard drives for about $1600. So far, it's been great. It was a breeze to setup, it's using a hybrid RAID format that's expandable, and I've got an FTP running on it now. Using iSCSI to be able to map drives on my computer for apps that don't support network locations (hey Steam) is awesome.
I'd highly recommend it.
Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'.
As for using cloud services, I believe you can get a proper T&C from Microsoft, one that you can review as a lawyer. Your tradeoff is the security of your offices, the reliability of your electricity supply and HVAC, and the reliability with which you remember to take secure off site backups, versus the reliability of your Internet connection.
If that doesn't persuade you, look up Ricardo's Law.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
No sense of irony whatsoever. Look if you haven't the acumen to sift out the purpose of hiring a professional for professional services, you certainly don't have the acumen to sift through a slashdot thread for a real solution. Penny-wise and pound foolish? Yes, you absolutely are. You've already stated elsewhere in this thread that you've lost billable hours for your little hobby and admittedly you're not a network admin, a systems admin, or even done any time in desktop support, you're a "power user", which has no standard definition. You'd like to know what the cause of a symptom is without an inkling of familiarity with the proper operation of the system to begin with. Try this, ask your doctor why you're fat, or why you've had a heart attack? The answer is what, poor diet, poor exercise, or poor genes. What you are looking for is the definitive cause of a symptom where there may not be one, or where the cost is too great to pursue the underlying cause of the problem. Your answer is "stipulated"? As in: "It is stipulated that despite the general nature of professional services you will not be receiving them as a client with our firm." Pure hilarity, please, review your bookkeeping and tell me you've spent more on ITS than stationary since 2003 and don't try to lie to yourself by listing your hourly rate in that cost, try instead minimum wage, because quite simply anyone with no experience and a 100-level class at the community college/university is looking at only, basic career opportunities. Now, all this criticism aside, you are a power user and that is a valuable asset as a liaison between your firm and your service provider(s), but don't pretend a little affinity with computing means you should be supporting everything, you shouldn't.
We moved to a mix of NAS and Cloud a few years ago. We wouldn't go back.
No more time spent on our servers. No more worrying about patches, upgrades, hardware failure, etc. No staff time lost to systems maintenace, backups.
We use the cloud for most project storage. Always [sic] available, at the office, at home, at client sites. Added benefits include systems backups, syncing folders, etc. Requires some trust in the vendor maintaining system integrity, but the risk is lower than at-office implementation.
We use two NAS devices for corporate data and archival storage. Each has a mirror set; I just like two devices as well because (a) they are dirt cheap, and (b) it gives me some level of redundancy in case one of the boxes goes and dies. They sync to each other. We periodically burn DVDs for offisite backup, multiple copies. This is the only weak point; maybe at some point in the future I'll add a third, off-site, sync'ed system.
In all, it works well. IMHO, it provides more than a single onsite server would provide, at a lower cost.
Yeah, I know, sometimes juries forget that. :-) But with all respect to other posters, even a hundred happy campers aren't enough to prove out a product.
You have a problem to solve. The solution will, over time, require more than just technology. Focus on the company at least as much as the technology. Where are they going to be in 3 years? How is their support? What kind of record do they have in the areas of retention and compliance?
I support the suggestion to use a standalone firewall/vpn. Otherwise, it sounds like Windows Server with a RAID 1 configuration will cause you the least grief long term. You could buy a couple of the little NAS boxes for backup and archive.
I own a company that is a little larger than yours, but our needs are handled easily by a whitebox VMWare ESXi machine running a firewall/VPN Server appliance, an Ubuntu Server virtual machine, and some other VMs for various duties.
It has served us well, and the beauty about VMs is that they're entirely portable to other hardware, so if you need to replace the server, the VMs just migrate right over - no reinstalling or reconfiguring anything.
Something to look at... and it's fiendishly simple.
I see a lot of small business who thought that a NAS box could be a substitute for a real server. Yes they both serve files. Here's where the differ:
A properly configured server runs a directory service, which keeps track of things like usernames and passwords. This is used to authenticate users to desktops, and to set file permissions for who can see and edit various files and folders.
IN ADDITION, this directory is often used to authenticate access to other resources like VPN, WiFI, and cloud-based resources like Google Apps.
In most instances, it runs some type of anti-virus master software, to ensure all desktops are in compliance and provide reporting. Furthermore, anyone competent is running some type of backup software (be it cloud or tape or something else).
In a well-designed environment, Group Policy (or Unix alternative - lots-o-scripts) is used to ensure that everyone has the software and the updates they need, and that their machines are configured properly.
The server does require maintenance and updating. The NAS does too, though even if the manufacturer bothers to post security updates, how smoothly they can be applied, and whether or not you'll ever be informed, is another story.
If a serious matter were to go into litigation, I'd seek the services of a professional. You should do the same.
Windows Server 2012 isn't too shabby as a file server -
* Windows Search for easy searching of files for your Win 7 clients. ( You can run the old search if you have XP clients )
* De-duplication of files in 2012
* Active Directory. I'm sure third parties can do it well too, but pretty much guaranteed with Windows Server
* Windows Storage Spaces in 2012
Linux NAS solutions seem like they'd work pretty well, too. I'd say it's really up to you to decide. Lots of options.
Two success stories...
The first was a small business with a dozen workstations wherein a Windows SBS was dismantled and retired. Everthing was migrated to a small Synology (currently running their DSM 4.x), OpenDNS and Google Apps. Works well.
The second is a medium size business I'm working with that has multiple sites. They're using Windows primarily for authentication. But all storage needs are taken care of by Synology DS1512+:
http://www.synology.com/products/product.php?product_name=DS1512%2B&lang=us
with WD RE4 drives in RAID 5:
http://wd.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=30
at each site.
Both companies are using either USB or eSATA portable drives to back up the NAS data nightly, which is managed by the Synology software. They really are solid and easy to manage.
Some businesses may need more infrastructure for their business needs, and will need a Windows foundation if the software they want to use requires it. Or maybe Linux and other open-source solutions under the right circumstances. But a decent Internet pipe and a Synology box can provide most of the infrastructure needed for small businesses running workstation-based software.
If you can afford it ($700, diskless) Drobo is easily the best storage small business storage solution out there.
For a lot of my clients, I'll do a "micro-server"...something like an AMD E-350 (or even an Atom chip), with some big HDDs and a small, quiet box. It gives them all the flexibility of a full windows server, but is waaaaay cheaper and quiet. Since they're not doing anything processor intensive on it, the chip handles it just fine, and they're easy to maintain remotely.
Articulate, looks like if a real answer comes up it could help others...
is there hope for /. yet?
-AI
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion
I can not answer your question but I must comment on taking on the role of Sys Admin. I hope I am wrong and your company is different than mine. In doing so you transitioned from contributing profit to being overhead. Sure your colleagues love it on the surface, but when the bonuses go out, you will probably be poorer for it. I know, it happened to me (in another profession).
I have installed Synology NAS DS212s in a couple of my retail locations to replace servers (that were really only used for hosting shared folders...) and found them to be inexpensive, fast, quiet, reliable, simple to configure and maintain, small footprint, and extremely energy efficient.
The Synology NAS is currently configured for:
(users are on Macs, Windows, and Linux desktops)
(HR and Payroll desktops are backed up once daily, point-of-sale is backed up hourly using a plugin that allows a snapshot backup of the databases without interrupting it's near constant use)
(the host system then backs this data up as part of it's own backup scheme)
The Synology NAS boxes are running a fairly standard Linux with a custom GUI overlay. They maintain their own packages for various applications, but you can log in to a shell and install/configure as you wish.
YMMV
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
...this seems like a good time/place to ask for advice.
I'm setting up an external, hardware raid1 disk dock as an on-site back-up solution.
I know 'raid is not a back-up' but I'm planning to use this as a once a week back-up of my internal HDD, I'm talking a home/single computer environment.
The specifics are a StarTech, 2 disc dock with on-board raid 1 and 2x WD Black HDDs. As I said, I'd be making back-ups weekly and it wouldn't be attached to anything at other times. I realise that this is an on-site backup (i.e useless in the case of theft or fire/disaster) but would anyone disagree that this is a good on-site solution?
As a lawyer you should not even consider it. Lawyers must guarantee confidentiality of all client work, you remember that part from law school right? You need a departmental server that says who gets access to what and you need to track who authored and who modified. You must ensure it is not only backed up and those backups safely stored, but discoverable.
You also need a completely bullet proof journaling file system so you can un-delete documents that are inadvertently deleted and we are not even talking deliberate acts here, just and oops because the judge is not going to be very sympathetic and your opposing counsel will smile appreciatively when you don;t meet a filing deadline ( I forget the exact word when you must file by a certain date in order to have standing ).
The above is the very reason most lawyers have not gone paperless. AFAIK, the only two products out there that meat the above criteria are a Windows or a Novell ( OES2 - linux with the Novell layer on top ) server. Now you can download Novell OES2 for free ( you have to create an account ) and they will try and get you to purchase support, but you are not required to but you would be a fool not to.
The bottom line here is don't play fast and loose with your clients information if not for their sakes then for your own. Fucking this stuff will not only get you slapped with a huge malpractice suite but could damn well get you disbarred, but I figure you know that.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
Is it the current hardware you've got problems with or Windows 2003 ?
If it is Windows 2003 you can simply upgrade it to a Linux (OpenSuSE or Ubuntu) and get it for free...
If it is the hardware then a NAS is a good and cheaper solution than a server.
My company bought a Synology DS 1511+ about four months ago due to our aging Thecus NAS starting to show some signs of giving up. Note that we had been using this Thecus unit for many years, and the only problem we were having was that we would occasionally get warning messages about the disks being on their last legs. All our file operations were fine.
The Synology unit has had issues from day 1, mostly to do with file locking. After several weeks of random "This file could not be saved", or "Too many open files" messages, we started to ask Synology for help. They were useless. It took over a month for them to even acknowledge our increasingly desperate pleas for help, and several times we would arrange a time for them to log into our system only for them to forget to turn up.
Eventually we started fiddling around in the system ourselves, bumping up inode limits, stuffing around with everything to try to stop the system from falling over constantly. It doesn't help that when you turn logging on, the device suffers from a memory leak that after a couple of days renders it useless. It also doesn't help that they're using a version of Samba from 3 years ago.
We're waiting delivery of a QNap device as I type this, and I seriously can't wait to see the end of the piece of shoddy crap from Synology.
Please, do not buy a synology NAS. You'll regret it later.
I am artificially intelligent.
You can walk in any store and get a fairly powerful machine for under $400.
Throw Untangle on it, slap in a RAID card, and you're golden.
I have a DS1512+ with 5 WD RE4 drives. I sustain over 100 MB/s on it. The ent RE4 drives are worth it. Don't get desktop drives.
As for VPN, spend some money on a real VPN appliance (like from Cisco). The Synology also plays well with LDAP and AD.
Just be aware that QNAP does not have any disk / RAID scrubbing feature so it cant check if there is a lot of blocks are going going bad.
It can only check the file system and s.m.a.r.t. tests. /dev/null once in a while. og pehaps figure out how to add cron jobs to the qnap itself that stays after reboot.
I guess if you have a server running, you could read everything to
Not just that, but I just read a short news article about Microsoft having their staff snoop through private files of their Skydriver users.
Their explanation is that every file is scanned and the ones that get flagged get a manual inspection.
A user of the Tweakers.net website got his Skydrive blocked because he had 1 or more nude pictures on it and MS doesn't like nudity it seems.
I'll never cloudify my "personal" pictures like that. That user now has a windows smartphone with very limited functionality because of this taurus excrementus.
This is the sig that says NI (again)
As I am sure you have seen, there are many on here with great ideas. You said that you have about 100GB worth of data, and years of sweat equity in documents in MS Word. You already know Windows, so why break that approach? Buy yourself a name brand Server, so that you get some support for the hardware. Dell, HP, Lenovo, Cisco (Yes Cisco Makes Servers!) Put about 8GB of RAM in it, and get at least 3 1TB Raid drives (of course it will need a RAID controller!). Put Windows Server 2008 R2, and you can migrate your data. You will continue to maintain your DNS/DHCP settings and your office will continue to function the way that you have determined that is best!
Buy a Resara device (http://resara.com/) or roll you own (http://resara.org/).
You'll get file storage, an Active Directory-compatible domain, DNS, DHCP, etc.
Submitter is not qualified to do any of this. Running a Server 2003 Active Directory environment requires the server handle DNS on the LAN. If you're not, then you're fucking it up. You should know that, or you're not qualified to maintain such an environment. Given that, you should probably switch to a Netgear ReadyNAS or something.
I would buy a new Dell T320 server with raid1 sas or sata drives depending on how much speed you need and install the free version of VMWare ESXi on it and convert the current 2003 server to virtual. This saves you all the reconfiguration of the server/moving to a nas and then revisit the idea of a nas when Microsoft is about to stop supporting Windows 2003.
The OS would be Windows 2008R2 for now. The hardware should be (two) HP DL180 or ML110 servers.
It might seem like over kill but there are many reasons why its a no brainer.
The OS has the features you need, and are required to have for compliance, its stable and has been on the market for a number of years. The bugs and work arounds are known either online or by the people who could easily support you.
The hardware has hardware RAID and can survive a failed drive and automatically rebuild on a spare drive, so there is no interruption to business operations. These servers can have redundant power supplies, which means you could attach one to a UPS the other to building mains.. so if the UPS battery dies or the building mains dies there is time to properly shutdown. These servers have remote ilo capabilities for remote service from the BIOS to the OS reducing the need for an onsite service call.
You need two servers so that they can provide redundant services like DNS, DHCP, Domain Login, ect.. whether you run the file system in a Cluster or not is a support decision, but replication could provide you an onsite backup in case of catastrophic hardware failure.
A good Cisco VPN router ASA5505 costs in the neighborhood of $600 and runs IOS. I would never consider attempting "soft" vpn or a "soft" router. It complicates recovery and increases downtime. Conversly I would never consider running DHCP on the Cisco Router for anything other than VPN, OS DHCP serves many other functions and the servers for the LAN is the proper place for it.
If you do go the extreme cost cutting direction be prepared for a lot of downtime, and a lot of interaction with the support staff. Set expectations and know when your beaten. Many of the dedicated NAS have an upper limit in transfer speed due to their low cost CPU, adding RAID capabilities to them only makes the speed restrictions much worse. A "fast" NAS might get 30 MB/s where as a 1 GB network could in theory go as fast as 100 MB/s, fast hard drives will not over come these limits.. going to 10 GB network will not make a slow NAS faster.
Far be it from me to access a law business, but going the home network route may not be in their best interest. The costs may seem attractive, but really should be one of the last places to cut cost. A well considered network should run for 4-5 years without much tweaking and possibly could go 7-8.
I mention HP gear, but Dell has similar offerings. I'm just more familar with HP at this time.
I was in the same boat, but not in an office setting. I had a custom built linux server running RAID 6 providing FTP, HTTP, DHCP, DLNA, etc.. I got tired of the administration, having a huge box sitting under the desk, and I initially installed the wrong distro as well (gentoo).
After months of research, I went with a Synology 1812+. I'm very pleased to say, I love it, and I gained functionality. I can do everything I was doing before and more. FTP, HTTP(s), DHCP, email, DLNA, media server, Samab, NFS, VPN, SSH, telnet, quotas and more. It is also MUCH quieter and more energy effecient.
It has a UI interface to configure everything. While editing conf files in vim provides the most flexibilty, I felt the UI provided just enough configuration / functionality to meet my needs.
Yes, it has a slower CPU and less RAM, but for a file / media / etc... server, it is more than enough.
If you combined this with a reasonable router / firewall, you will be fine.
I'm not an attorney, just the guy who became the resident tech based on serendipitous skills. Sooooo, I won't vouch for our system satisfying all legal requirements for accountability, but I will vouch for the cost effectiveness, simplicity, and general good results we've had for the last few months. We use JST's CollectMax software to track the collections portion of our business, which runs on the above mentioned server, but will be moving to a different box when I shut that down. Since CollectMax has an imaging module, I had tried to turn us into a less-paper office (paperless is just too unrealistic) and we have had some success there, though a couple hundred physical files still circulate daily as has always been the case.
I'll note too that we use Carbonite to backup individual systems throughout the day because I can't get everyone to save purely on the network, nor is that necessarily desirable since deletions are permanent. Also, we have another NAS as well as a large HD on one of the partner's machines that both field nightly backups of documents and images.
My 2
I recommend you use the FreeNAS mini. You get the respect of BSD security as well as a great device.
http://www.ixsystems.com/storage/ix/home-office-storage/freenas-mini.html
This was rudely stated, but true. You should use your knowledge to find someone you can trust who will communicate processes with you and teach you to do the little things. Stay away from the big consulting houses. They will send you someone who can't answer your questions because they are following little scripts and don't actually know how to do things. Look for a small provider you can trust.
Cheap storage VM.
If you implement a VPN, why do you want FTP? With VPN you can use your normal file manager. Change passwords regularly and get your colleagues something like SplashID for smartphone password management.
> full time lawyer and part time nerd doing most of the IT support
I am clearly biased since I am one of the horde of consultants to small business, but I suggest talking to someone who has done this at least a dozen times before.
How would you respond to someone who posted "I'm a full time sysadmin and part time (self-taught) lawyer who handles the contract work..."
Plus your billing rate is probably higher than an IT guys.
A Windows Home Server 2011 Edition would work just fine for you and can be found in the retail chain (NewEgg, Tiger Direct, etc) for around $50. Remote Web Access, VPN, file Sharing with NTFS permissions. Client and Server backups as well.
This sounds like a perfect solution for you.
unless you are involved in something that your government or it's allies finds distasteful - YOU ARE JUST NOT THAT IMPORTANT.
The next administration could find anything distasteful.
I have "lost" a disk in my RAID5, and the NAS rebuilt easily once I replaced it - but if you lose a disk in RAID0, then wave goodbye to your data.
With modern drives sized in terabytes, the same thing can happen to RAID5 if you lose a disk while rebuilding.