I Need An Idiot's Guide To Building An Office Network™

[Toolbox]

I Need An Idiot's Guide To Building An Office Network™

This is the scenario - I need to build a small, cost-effective network for my new office with 6 workstations and a single server. I want a lot of room for upgrade and I want the hardware and software to last about 3 years. In the future, we are going to upgrade to a maximum of 16 workstations.

I pretty much know what hardware goes into the workstations and server... what I don't know is the other bits that connect everything together making it network.

Here is what I've got planned and tell me if you can suggest something better and if I've gone overkill on the hardware:

WORKSTATIONS:

[*] Intel Pentium IV 1.60A GHz
[*] Asus P4S333-VM Motherboard with LAN & Sound
[*] Trident 8MB AGP Videocard
[*] Apacer 256MB PC2100 DDR RAM
[*] Mag 770FS Monitors
[*] Seagate Barracuda ST340016A
[*] Venus Value Barebones
[*] Giant UPS 500VA
[*] Microsoft Windows XP Home

Now, a few questions about it.

1. Is it okay that the workstations don't have Floppy or CD-ROM Drives? I'm planning on just installing all the OS' and software with a single CD-ROM drive and just moving around. Anyway, once the server is up, I can install from there.

2. Is it okay to use Microsoft XP Home in the office? It's costs the same for 98SE and XP Home so I figured Home would be better because it can utilize NTFS.

3. No case fans... do the Northwoods get hot?

4. Did I go to far with the hardware? I know I could get cheaper - Celeron's, SDRAM, smaller hard disks and a smaller monitor but I really want some upgrade room. What do you think will cost me less in the long run, to get cheaper and smaller peripherals now that will later be all useless or to get state-of-the-art stuff now so when I upgrade in the future, I won't have to change everything all over again...

Now, let's get to the server. I was thinking of IDE RAID 0+1 because it's cheap. Is this enough for a server or should I really just go with SCSI? If I do go with SCSI, I'm going to need an Adaptec 2100S at the very least if I want to use RAID 0+1.

What do you guys think?

Here is the system specs of the server. Again, please let me know if I can do with less or if I need more.

SERVER:

[*] Asus A7M266-D
[*] Dual XP 2000+
[*] Dual Alpha PAL8045
[*] 1024MB DDR RAM
[*] Trident 8MB AGP Videocard
[*] 3Com 3C905C-TX-M
[*] ViewSonic E40 14" Monitor
[*] HP Laserjet 1100
[*] HP Scanjet 6300C
[*] Sony 52X IDE CD-ROM
[*] Floppy Disk Drive
[*] Plextor PlexWriter 24/10/32A
[*] Enermax 550 Watt Power Supply
[*] Mouse & Keyboard
[*] Windows 2000 Server (5 Clients)

Storage:

[*] 4 Seagate Barracuda ST360021A 60GB IDE RAID 0+1

or

[*] Adaptec 2100S SCSI Controller Card
[*] 4 Seagate Barracuda ST336938LW 36.9GB U160 RAID 0+1

The things I want the server to do for me is to help me share the internet connection, one place to scan and print and I want all the data backed up to the server at the end of the day. I'm sure there are other good uses for it but I don't know what they are just yet.

More questions:

1. The 2000 Server (5 Clients) thing... what does that mean?

2. If I decide that Windows 2000 Server is too expensive, can I make a server run Windows 2000 Professional and still be as useful?

That's about it when it comes to the individual computers. My last question... What do I need to make all the computers see each other in terms of software and hardware? Do I use a router, hub or switch. Mind you, I don't know the difference between any of these devices. I am a networking beginner and know nothing! Literally!

I want the computers to be able to see the other hard drives on the network and use files that may help the programmers be more efficient.

Software... is everything I need within 2000 Sever? Or will I have to install a 3rd party application to help me get the network going. I want to be able to use network drives for the CD-ROM and the Writer.

CAT5 cables are good right? That's all I need to get transfer rates of up to 100MB/Sec. I'm talking regular LAN Cards here! Or do I need more than this.

The project hgasn't begun and I can still change anything and everything. You guys just have to tell me what!

The internet line we are planning on using is a DSL 256K.

For all that have read this from top to bottom, thank you so much for your valuable time. All the information that any of you can provide will really help me out!

Looking forward to all your replies.

Sincerely,

Toolbox™

 

[Toolbox]

You guys can also recommend a completely different setup... I am very open on this topic!

 

[B4TMANN]

Toolbox,

Ok...here you go. This is my expertise. I am a network engineer for a large hospital. So i should be able to help you out here :-)

Here goes.

First. Don't use XP Home, either use Win200 Pro or WinXP Pro. WinXP Home cannot be a member of a Domain, which is what you should set up!

Second. Go with SCSI and Do RAID 5 ! RAID 5 will give you a good medium between speed and fault tollerance! You'll want fault tollerance so you can swap drives out if one goes bad. You'll need at least 3 drives to do RAID 5. I'd put 2 drives in as Mirrored for the OS. THen for the Data drives (that will be accessed by everyone) I'd use 5 drives in a RAID 5 config. RAID 5 is Striping with Parity! Gives you speed and Fault tollerance too!

If you can I'd buy 5 - 18GB SCSI Cheetah Drives @ 15,000 RPM !

Third. I wouldn't use the server for ICS (internet Connetcion sharing). Id get a small router/firewall and put that onto the main Inet connection first. Then get yourself like an 8 port switch to hook the clients into. It don't have to be expensive, like for only 6 people you could get a Netgear FS108 for like $70 U.S.

This way, you have the firewall/router controlling the Inet connection instead of a server ( don't want that vulnerability).

Fourth. The 5 client thingy :-) Just means that you can have 5 people connecting to that server. It means you get the server OS plus 5 client licenses! You'll have to buy more CAL's (Client Access Licences) from MS when you add more people to your network! It's the law!

I definately would do Windows 2000 Server. It kicks butt. YOu can do a Win2kPro box as a server but I really don't recommend it. It dosen't optimize the memory for all the backend stuff that your server will do. You could skimp a little on the workstations and put that money into a good server. I'd go for 1.2 GHz AMD or Intel procs if I were you for the workstation. Celeron or Duron or whatever is cheap. Also depends what you're gonna spend on the workstations total each. I know you can get workstations from Dell and Compaq for like $800 - $1000 with Monitors and a 3 year warranty if that interests you.

Ok.... on to the network

You'll probably wanna make your Server a Domain Controller. This will allow all your workstations to "login" to the server with a user name and password. It will also let you make login scripts to map folders to the users "My Computer" as a mapped drive. You can also have your server issue IP addresses by making it a DHCP server (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol). Which I would recommend!

It is not to hard to set up, you just really really need to know how to set up security correctly on the server so you don't have just anyone getting into anything. There will also be certain services that you don't want to have running for security reasons . One example might be IIS or WINS. I can tell you more about those later

Cat 5 cabling and 10/100 NIC's are just fine.

I'm not sure, but I think I've answered most of your stuff. If' I have left it alone it means you're on the right track .

Hope this helped man !

Peace out!

 

[Toolbox]

Thank you so much for all the help... with what you've written, I think I can now get started. As I go along, I will ask for more help will definitely let you know.

Thanks so much for doing this and for offering to help out so much. I really appreciate it!

 

[PostCode]

Why does the server need to have the CDRW? I've always wondered why people put the CDRW on the server. This is the most crucial system in a network. Seems like putting a CDRW drive on it would really bog down the network in times of buring in addition to bogging down the server itself.

 

[Wonga]

Just to add to the information already given to you, if you do make your server a domain controller, with your client machines logging onto it, you will be able to set up policies too, which means that users can be restricted from, for example, getting into the control panel, or from cancelling the logon and getting into Windows. So, with policies being used, the network will be a lot more secure and less time will be wasted later when people accidentally screw up something like the system files.

 

[tamago]

If you're using Win2k Server, go run MMC and goto the snap-in add/remove on the menu pull down from the file menu and then go add and look for Group Policy. From there, add it and then close out from the add box then from there, you have access to securing everything for a workstation. Be weary, you could even lock yourself out even as administrator