small business network + file server ... HELP!

[netclick]

Hi Guys,
Any advice would be appreciated!

We are a small business running on 14 computers; we deal with a big number of data that we cannot afford to loose. We never had a serious backup procedure….

We decided to proceed on getting a file server for the whole office where from now on we could map a network drive on every computer where the user would store all the information there and therefore access it via the server at all times.

This way we could proceed on backing up the server every once in a while + have a RAID 1 (MIRROR) in case of any hardware failure.


For the system, I have an ATHLON XP 64 5200+, 2GB OF RAM and the 2 x 500GB SEAGATE hard drives MIRRORED (RAID1).

Now the question remains in the file server setup. I have tried running everything via WINDOWS XP PRO…It was great… had all the user options, folder permissions…it was exactly what we we’re expecting for….

However noticed later that it only supports 10 concurrent connections…. Therefore we always had the rest of the people from the office getting an error saying: the server has reached its max number of users…

Now, question is…. What do we do? I have a new copy of WINDOWS 2003 SERVER ENTREPRISE…. Does this operating system as well have concurrent connection limits? How would that work?

ANY HELP AND ADVICE WOULD BE APPRECIATED!

 

[Afriend]

We have been using Windows 2003 small business server for 5 years with about 15 workstations and it is a good, stable program. Our stations run XP pro operating system.

If it is working for us it should work for you. I have read that XP and Windows 2003 are both improvements of the Windows NT operating system. This would make them close kin, and maybe that is why they have blended well in our network.

As to the specifics--whether your WINDOWS 2003 SERVER ENTERPRISE is different from our WINDOWS 2003 SMALL BUSINESS SERVER--I do not have information, but I think they are essentially the same.

 

[GhislainG]

WINDOWS 2003 SERVER ENTERPRISE can be configured to allow for thousands of connections if need be. It all depends on the number of additional CALs that you buy.