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Storage capacity expansion suggestions

Hello everybody,

It is small office with 15 users and domain controller with limited storage space on it available. All users initially put their files on shared folder but over time amount of data grew a lot so we were forced to store files on couple external drives connected locally to workstations. We're looking for solution which will allow us to use shared folders to store all the data currently spread between several places, assign access permissions and extend it in the future if necessary. This solution should provide some redundancy and fast access to files so multiple users can access these files at the same time. I tested Thecus NAS enclosure with 2x750GB drives in RAID1 but it is too slow and limited as functionality. I was also thinking about adding 2 more drives inside the server (2x1.5TB in RAID1) but I am not sure that I have enough SATA ports inside and actually not sure that built-in Intel Matrix RAID currently used for storage array can operate multiple RAID sets. The server is tower so we're not looking at rack-mountable solution until it is the only option available. I am net familiar with file servers, but would be separate server with Windows 2003 Standard, hardware RAID with enough ports a good solution, what do you think? How actually businesses expand their storage? I'm looking forward for your opinions and thoughts.


Thanks.


P.S. The price is also a factor as right now we cant's spend $6000 or more just for storage, especially during recession. We'll be adding about 1GB data daily to shared storage. We are not looking for expensive solution. New storage will be used for backups as well (for example, we can backup Exchange database from Domain controller to it).
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Hypercat (Deb)
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I agree, and servers are fairly cheap for what you need.

 
I hope this helps !
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RockChalk

As a note, Intel Matrix Storage will support multiple RAID volumes (up to 4 volumes), but I'd still agree with hypercat's advice.  
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OK, if we decide to go with server, how it should be set set to accomplish this task - just basic installation - join a domain and set it as file server role?

Should I use Windows Server OS or I can install Windows XP Pro and just share the folder on it?

Also, hypercat mentioned something about domain controller and DNS server which will run on second server... Can I do it in case the primary one is SBS 2003? Can I set new storage server to store copy of AD and second DNS server? I'm not sure about SBS though..
You would need to get server-level hardware and the Windows Server 2003 operating system.  Make sure the system is configured with a level of memory, CPU, etc., to run Windows 2003 in an active directory domain. You want to get a server storage system and preferably with a RAID card capable of doing RAID5.  For RAID5 you will need at least 3 hard drives, preferably 4, so that you have a hot spare. You can use SATA RAID, rather than SCSI RAID, as it's a little bit less expensive and is becoming the standard for small servers. If you don't know anything about RAID, you should read up a little on RAID configurations before configuring the new server.

Once you get the server and software, install Windows 2003 Server and join your SBS 2003 domain as a member server.  Then install DNS, and promote the server, using dcpromo, to Domain Controller status.  This will work fine with a SBS2003 setup.  This will get you to the point where you can set it up as a file server, but it will also be acting as a second domain controller to keep your network up and running if your SBS server fails.
Thank you, hypercat.

I am familiar with hardware portion, but I do not have long advanced experience with Server OS. I was planning to use RAID6 as well. I was not sure that I can use second server to store replica of AD. But let me ask you again - why can't I use just Windows XP Pro machine with shared folder? I can play with NTFS permissions to limit users access... What actually is the difference between those two scenarios if the only thing I'm looking for is file storage? Thanks.
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