Small Business Server 2008 FTP

Every Server OS wether linux/windows/unix have FTP server functionality.
if your business client alredy have SBS installed then he can utilize the same for FTP instead of setting up the new server and Hardware.

Also windows is offcourse much easier for configuration and management.

It is considered to be a very bad practice, from a security point of view,  to enable FTP services on a domain controller.

Yes as Robwill said, will require to check on the security part that it is not on the domain controller or any important server.

it is bad practice to install roles/features besides ADDS on domain controllers, however SBS is an exception with Exchange/Sharepoint and many other tools, so activating FTP doesn't change much (imho), just make sure you properly configure the security settings ;-)

I disagree . Why would adding FTP to SBS be less of a risk than an other DC.

Persoannly I would prefer to see the FTP server on a separate machine (physical or virtual), even and XP box, and pidealy in the DMZ.

Why is it you need FTP?  If for members of your domain they can more securly access resources with the built-in SBS features such as VPN, RWW, or Sharepoint.

They are a media company, have external clients who will need to upload and download files.

I agree that ideally an FTP server (as with web servers) should be in a DMZ on a seperate machine... however please remember we are talking about small businesses, this is why they get SBS to have all services on 1 machine - they don't want or afford a complex environment.

I guess what I really want is to use native tools/services where ever possible to accomplish tasks. I am trusting the SBS FTP server hoping that Microsoft would provide a decent service with their products, that things will work and talk to each other better.

Does the native FTP server use SFTP or FTPS? I have set one up in the past using isolation which has worked well, but this time I want to encrypt all data if possible?

The Microsoft service uses the FTP protocol, which bas been around forever, and passes all information in cleartext. It does not support SFTP or FTPS. If it did, I would have recommend it.

Why not just set up an old PC running Filezilla, it requires very little in the way of "Horsepower" and would be much safer than enabling on the SBS.