Thanks choucove, that's very helpful. It confirms my general concern that NAS really might be more trouble than it's worth. I do plan to put Quickbooks and Tabs, my timekeeping software, on the server, and it sounds like that may not work well on NAS. I don't really mind paying a little more for a server. Mainly I do not want to miss the opportunity to become more efficient with this transition. To answer your question, I need full remote desktop access. I travel and need my full desktop environment when on the road, to keep up with my office work. I have my laptop set up to do this now, I think through the Remote Desktop utility that comes with the Windows OS. It works well, and I will probably set it up the same way in my new office. The one problem I have with it is that I spend some time in an area where my only internet access is via HughesNet, a satellite provider. There is some lag when typing. I'm told the problem is not solvable, but I am open to suggestions if you have any.
choucove said:
While it might be possible to replace your server with a NAS, keep in mind that a NAS is not as versatile as a full server and you might not be able to do everything with it. In fact, depending upon how your Quickbooks is set up you might not have the option at all and may require a full server.
I set up a law office almost identical to your situation, and they were also looking at just doing a NAS. However, they had a piece of software for time tracking as well as their Quickbooks that was directly installed on the old server, with shares set up as well. This won't work on a NAS, as you can't install Quickbooks or your other software you might need to. In the end going with a full server didn't really cost them much more than the NAS would have anyways and they have a full Windows Server 2008 environment with all their software needs, and a system that runs on enterprise standard hardware so it can be upgraded or replaced in the event of failure without any difficulties and for relatively cheap.
When you say that you need remote access, what are you referring to? Do you use FTP to pull data when off-site, or are you using some form of remote desktop? Do you use a remote-to-site VPN? Basically, do you only want to have access to files or are you wanting to have complete access and control to your computer or server at the office when you are out and about?
In the case of the law office I assisted with, they chose full remote desktop as that way they had the ability to pull up all the programs and operate their own individual computers remotely just as if they were at their computers at the office. It gave them more flexibility to have access not just to individual documents, but also all their necessary applications networked and installed in one location.