Hardware
RAID has failed: read this before you rebuild
The biggest losses come not from the failure itself but from the rebuild that follows.
A question we get often. The answer depends on whether you need more than file sharing.
A NAS is network-attached storage. Its core job is sharing files, and it does that well.
What it handles:
The advantages: cheap, quiet, small, simple to set up. For a small office it is often enough.
A server is a general-purpose computer. You decide what runs on it.
What a NAS cannot do:
The cost: more expensive, larger, noisier, needs management, and carries licence cost.
1. Do you want central user accounts?
Cutting off access from one place when someone leaves, one password everywhere, a new machine ready in five minutes. If yes, you need a server.
2. Will a business application run on it?
If your accounting or ERP software requires a server, the discussion ends there.
3. How many users?
Under about ten users with only file sharing, a NAS is probably enough. Above twenty, the need for central management asserts itself.
The most common and usually the best arrangement: the server does the work, the NAS holds the backups.
The server runs the domain, the applications and the database. The NAS takes the server's backups and holds a second copy.
This is better than either alone and the cost is reasonable for most businesses.
Using the NAS as both working storage and backup. If your live data and your backup sit on the same device, you do not have a backup.
If the device fails, is stolen or is hit by ransomware, both go together. The backup needs to be somewhere else — at minimum a different device, preferably with an offline copy.
Ask us about server and storage supply, or request a free assessment directly.
The biggest losses come not from the failure itself but from the rebuild that follows.
The VA figure on the box does not tell you how many minutes your equipment will run.
The model number goes up and so does the price. But which one does your office actually need?