Re: suggestions on network storage

The larger the business the less down-time they can tolerate, RAID is
for hardware redundancy, not backups.

We are in furious agreement. So please see the original post.

No, 1TB of storage costs a LOT more than $150 when you factor in the
device you need to connect it too. I've seen a number of NAS devices
that I consider quality devices, with 500GB that cost around $900 each.

You've lost me. I have a 1TB Maxtor on my desk that I just plug in via USB anywhere. Costs $125. Nothing more to pay.

You're reaching again - SQL logs are not, by default, backed up every
hour using the SBS wizards, mail is only backed up if they are doing

mmmm.... where did I say this had anything to do with Wizards? If you are using Premium then you have SQL Server and such things are quite possible and quite easy.

cached mode, files are not backed up every hour either... My statement
stands, a loss can mean an entire day of work gone and often more than
an entire day to re-enter it - in our discussion, RAID would have
prevented that added cost if a drive failed.

No. Email is 100% backed up in the client machine. 100% The only think you might lose is deleted mail storage. How can that be a serious issue? RAID will assist the prevention of loss due to drive failure but that isn't the only point of failure.

I suggest you look at the SBS Backup Wizard, it does not do incremental
and you should be teaching your server owners (clients) how to use it

Would you get off the wizard thing! Wizards are for dummies - there is much more to life and if you are serious about managing your server and have hardware limitations (like no RAID :)) then get into ntbackup properly!

We never use Share Point for Document Mgt, nor SQL, but we do have
customers running Document apps that store them in SQL and acces them
via a web service on the SBS box, but, again, it's third party and
offers a lot more than SP does.

3rd party? Doesn't have to be. Its free out of the box and holds a lot of functionality a lot of people seem to ignore.

No, it's not a place that any respectable IT professional would cut
corners, not one respectable IT pro would ever claim that you can cut
the RAID solution to save money as being a reasonable suggestion.

But it isn't your place to reject the decision the client makes. Are you then going to abandon them just because they don't have RAID?

Then your scope is limited, I can't think of any of our clients that
would even consider 1 day's downtime as being acceptable.

Then you'll be missing out on a lot of business <g>.

And you seem to be missing the point, early adoption of an OS is always
a bad thing, it's always best to wait for the first SP or 6 months to

Ooohhh... :-) How extreme. How boring. How limiting. Well that is your approach. We are early adopters and give our clients new technology as it appears.

No, you just made an assumption, that's where you're getting into
trouble.

I don't see I am in any trouble. My case is clear. New hardware abounds. Be proactive by replacing hardware on a practical frequency and keep reviewing new technologies and OS. Now, where is the trouble in that?

RAID costs the price of a an additional drive, since almost all server
boards come with basic RAID controllers, so, if the cost of your days

Would you stop with the religious zeal please? I am agreeing with you. But come back to the perspective that either the client does not have RAID or chooses not buy it. Does that end your relationship with the client? Well it doesn't for us.

But your comments appear to make you own to a person that uses cheap
workstations as servers and costs your clients (if you actually have
any) a lot of trouble/down-time.

Nice backhand - I will choose not to insult you. Yes I have clients and yes, many of them have custom built servers. Some, of their own choosing, have what I would call an upgraded workstation being used as an SBS server. We assist them all. I call a Dell Poweredge an upgraded workstation (before you get started...) but many companies I know just have a cheap box and install SBS on it.

It works and mostly, it survives. That shouldn't mean that we as consultants can't try to support them. So we do.

And every one of thousands of servers I've worked with and seen have
RAID solutions working in them. I can't recall the last time I ran into
a business that was not using RAID in a server.

You've worked with 1000's of servers? Impressive. Don't think I could number more than 60 different server sites that I worked with. None of our sites have more than 60 users and less than 10 have RAID storage. I have only seen 1 server HDD failure in 10 years but lots of other motherboard, RAM and power supply issues.

I stand by my position that 2008 will not make any significant
difference in productivity or ROI for businesses currently running 2003.

Well good on you. Others would contend you are wrong. I don't intend to debate that here.

Regards,

Geoff


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