Our small nonprofit needs help designing a filesharing and backup
system. My question is: can you recommend and provide a comparitive
evaluation of 2-3 options that will meet the criteria listed below.
We are open to hosted solutions, software packages, new hardware or
any combination thereof. If the only way to meet our specifications
is to hire a contract IT expert, tell us how to better describe our
needs and if possible what we should expect to pay.
Our data files include about 5GB of MS Office documents, and 20GB of
multimedia files (JPEG, MPEG, etc). Our resources include one 480GB
RAID-5 Buffalo Terastation and four Windows XP laptop computers. If
we were really savvy, I imagine we could accomplish this with a Linux
fileserver, and rsync as a cron job--but we have zero experience with
Linux and Unix, and we lack a dedicated file server machine.
Desired System Attributes (must have):
+ easy, in-office access to common files: everyone connected to the
office LAN can view and manipulate shared files from their Windows XP
machine. Our preference is for the file server to resemble any other
windows explorer browser, with a drag-and-drop interface.
+ automatic backups: working files are backed up automatically and
unobtrusively. Backup frequency is daily or better. Backups can
handle open files.
+ automatic version tracking: if I open and edit a shared file, the
system automatically archives (or has archived) a copy of the original
file (this property may be covered by the backup system).
+ archive differential backups: Backup archive is protected from file
over-writing and accidental deletion. In other words, the archive
isn't just a mirror--it also generates differential backup "hard
copies" every so often, so that we can always go back and find old
versions of files.
+ no special skills required for system setup and management
Desired System Attributes (nice-to-have):
+ password-protected access to working files from the internet
Systems we've tried and rejected:
+ Ars Digita community website: too hard to set up and customize,
non-intuitive file interface. Loved the automatic version tracking.
+ Groove: no differential backups. Loved the ease of operation.
+ Terastation RAID drive as network attached storage: no document
version tracking and no differential backups (too easy to over-write
and delete files on the server). Not possible to connect from outside
of the office LAN (IP address doesn't show up outside the firewall).
Love the fact that it shows up in Windows like any other drive.
+ Viceversa Pro: hard to configure for automatic backups. Problems
with path lengths greater than 256 characters. Love the options for
configuring backups. |
