Server ~50 Users and Growing

LOTS of possible ways to go here, 3 main ways would be:

1. A small, cheap 1U rack server, and a NAS, as suggested.
2. A larger, 2U rack server with a heap of drives.
3. A small 1U rack server, and SAN storage in a separate storage device behind it.

Personally, I would be tending towards option #2. Probably an HP DL380 G10 or Dell 740series server would be a good fit. Either of these servers can be configured with a LOT of storage space.

If you are dealing with large files, you will probably want to throw in a 10Gb NIC, even though most desktop machines don't support that speed just yet. Modern drive arrays can easily exceed the speed of 1Gb LANS. Use 10Gb connections between the server and switches, as well as between servers.

You may want a second server, with some slow, dense 3.5:" hard drives for disk-disk-{whatever} backup, this will run far faster with 10Gb networking.

Also, the servers I mentioned are both Rack mounted, although tower styles are available. You probably have 2 or more rack mount switches already. You will need a UPS, which are also available in rack mount.

Keeping everything in a rack can be tidier and more manageable than multiple boxes on the floor or a table.

I would do a server for primary storage, and NAS for backups only.

How much capacity and performance are you thinking about? A system with up to 24 2.5" drives could be very good, or overkill. Depends on your needs.

You can run Dell Live Optics to get an idea of current storage needs.

Hi Rob,

I'd recommend a bit more discussion first as there are so many factors to what you may need.

Consider the following and let us know:

• What is your current setup?
• Are you all based in a single location or spread around separate offices (or home workers)?
• Do you have a comms room for racks/kit etc. (if not  do you have anywhere suitable for one?)
• Do you have switches/routers already? if yes, what make/models?
• How much data do you currently need to store? How much do you expect it to grow?
• Do you, or anyone in the company, have the skills to setup and support a new IT system? what skills do you/they have and are you used to any specific technologies/vendors?
• what kind of IT services do you need? (e-mail, file storage, remote access, accounting, intranet etc.)
• How critical are these systems likely to be to the business? how would they cope if it went down?

Steve has made some excellent points.  I would strongly recommend you consider them.  

Additional questions to consider:
1. Windows or Linux? (for more of the rest of the questions below, I assume you select Windows)
2. Do you have experience with Active Directory?
3. Do you have experience with Virtualization - unless you have a VERY GOOD reason not to, you should be virtualizing.
4. Will the building wiring support gigabit speeds?
5. How will you backup?

And I'm sure others could add more questions.

In short, and certainly no disrespect intended, but this is a complex problem that really deserves on-site help - folks who can come in, work with you, learn your businesses needs and goals, and make recommendations for the configuration in addition to implementation assistance.

I have issues with HP that many people like to discount.  I have issues with Dell that many people like to discount. I wouldn't make either my first choice.  Cisco is not a server company.  They are a network company. I vaguely remember them making servers - I found them when I googled, but I've worked with large and small companies for over 20 years... and while I would select a Cisco server over Billy Joe's Server Company, it's not a product I would seriously consider.  Personally I would look at Lenovo, but in reality, Lenovo/HP/Dell would all have decent chances of being good.

Concur with kevinhsieh.

2U with 24x 2.5" bays and set them up with a blend of SATA SSDs (Intel SSD D3-46xx series) and 10K SAS drives both in RAID 6. Make sure the RAID controller is 1GB or 2GB non-volatile flash based cache.

A dual Intel Xeon Silver series with 192GB ECC to round things out.

Network performance should be backed by Intel X5xx series 10GbE dual dual-port NICs so a total of four ports minimum.

I suggest looking at 10GbE switches, cabling, and ports on the desktops/workstations to keep productivity up. The more and more we are seeing ultra large files for things like 4K video editing, rendering, and more Gigabit is just not cutting it anymore.

Multigigabit Ethernet (2.5 and 5 Gb) is available over existing Cat6 cabling. It requires new switches and NICs, but you don't need to replace your cabling like you would to go 10G to the desktop.

Thank you so much for all the comments. I'll give everyone so more info through these questions

What is your current setup?
60 Users, 15 laptop, Rest desktop users. Every user is set up independently based on their needs, which one of our companies they work for and hardware needs. Everyone can link up to ethernet as it run around the entire facility.

Are you all based in a single location or spread around separate offices (or home workers)?
We are spread out across multiple offices but all comes back to a central networking room. We have a few people working remotely so it would be ideal if they could remotely access the server

Do you have a comms room for racks/kit etc. (if not  do you have anywhere suitable for one?)
We have a networking room that I can install racks in.

Do you have switches/routers already? if yes, what make/models?
We have two routers, netgear nighthawks, along with a 24port managed netgear switch, and multiple unmanaged switches running throughout the offices.

How much data do you currently need to store? How much do you expect it to grow?
Looking at our main store (currently g suite) + Storage around our office we have about 10tb of data (company has been around for 3 years). We have unlimited storage on our g suite. But overtime, while we start create more video content, we will want to store it.

Do you, or anyone in the company, have the skills to setup and support a new IT system? what skills do you/they have and are you used to any specific technologies/vendors?
We've had all the skills we've needed for IT up until this point. A server opens up a new chapter, which we directly do not have a person for maintenance of a sever. I have personally set up servers, just not on a to be enterprise level.
 
What kind of IT services do you need? (e-mail, file storage, remote access, accounting, intranet etc.)
Services in order of priority would be file storage (editing included), remote access, and accounting. Email could be useful down the line but we have use g suite and I do not see a need to replace it.
 
How critical are these systems likely to be to the business? how would they cope if it went down?
If these systems went down it would be alright for a day or so. We have a large e com presence and do a lot of stuff right in our browsers, therefore if that is working we are fine.

Thank you for helping in the discussion.

Great info. thanks Rob.

We're happy to offer advice based on what you'd suggested but my gut feeling is that this kind of expenditure & disruption would need to be backed by warranties, accountability and support.
We can't offer any of those over an internet forum so our advice is just that: advice.

On that basis, with the level of server/network skills your business currently has and the fairly simple requirements you've stated, I recommend keeping it simple. A NAS seems like the most sensible idea at this point as storage is your biggest requirement. 10TB in 3 years is a fair bit of data. do you have any legal/GDPR/compliance requirements on the data you are storing? If not, just get a big fat NAS that is compatible with G suite drive/replication. this would allow you to have on-site access to data but still allows remote users to access it and also provides a backup between your on-site NAS & G suite file replication/storage.

If moving to a proper server/network system is deemed to be the best option, I suspect you'd be best to engage with a local, reputable IT company who can design, sell and (most importantly) then support a suitable system for you.

Yeah, probably time to hire a pro. With 50 users, I would think that you should have either Active Directory or Azure AD. The networking gear sounds like it is consumer/Best Buy level stuff. How is the endpoint protection? We know the firewall won't prevent any users from doing anything stupid or any malware from downloading and executing.

When you do receive proposals from local companies, feel free to post them in a new thread so we can sanity check them and give input.

I concur with @kevinHsieh. It's time to look to a professional for help designing a solution that allows for a hybrid approach to your setup.

One thing to keep in mind: Always have a backup of the cloud and on-premises data that is air-gapped. Meaning, it's on storage that is not wired in anywhere as a just-in-case.

If GSuite can't be backed up look elsewhere. O365 can be backed up fully by Veeam.