Hello, In our office some of our computers save their files to an old Novell Server. I've heard about NAS (Network Attached Storage) and was thinking about replacing the server with NAS, so everyone can use it. Has anyone used NAS before? Is it as easy as they say to set up? Many Thanks Glyn

I use a quantum snap server, works a treat using tcpip, with a dhcp server it installs in about 30 seconds. they work a treat

How do you back your server up? Do you just connect a tape drive to another computer on the network then configure the backup using the proper software installed on that machine.

I sale NAS, SAN, tape and server solutons - HP/Comp, SUN, Nexsan, EMC, ADIC, Exabyte....yada yada yada. To give you answers, I would need more information on what you have going on in your enviroment. I.e. What types of applications are you trying to support (i.e. what are your top 3 applications you are storing on the Novell Server)? The solution for a database heavy enviroment is going to be different for say a graphic heavy enviroment. How big is the server drive you are trying to replace, how much growth do you expect to have this year, next year...? That would help determine the size you could initially start with and allow for growth without replacing equipment. Tape is another component to storage. With a NAS and a SAN you are going to have storage drives, you would add tape more as DR (diaster recovery). Using tape as storage, as in a NAS or SAN, is possible but the performance comparison is like comparing a go cart to a ferrari. If workers are not only storing information but needing to retrieve information as well, a solo tape solution isn't going to serve your needs, you'll want a NAS or a SAN. There is a manufacture I think would be right for you, shoot me an email with as much detail as you can muster, and your vision, and I can give you some options.

D You kill me

for Glyns info, if you get a snap, i think they provide the backup software, which runns on any os system, its called data keeper, all i do is tell my veritas system to backup certain shares off the snap, backs up same as it would anything else. it really is very easy stuff

You know for the Life of me I can not see why anyone would use a NAS Server. I am the Network Administrator for a small Telecom Company in Florida and when I came here they had one of the Quantum Snap Servers. I kind of scratched my head at it then. We use it for Private Storage drives for People on the network to store there Word Docs and such on. Recently we wonted to implement a new Disk to Disk network back up and daster recovery system. My bosses wonted to by a new Snap Server and use it for the storage. I started doing the research on it and realized that about 80 GB of storage was like $7000, that is crazy. I built a Tara Server using Duel AMD Athlon MP CPU's Gigabit Ethernet and a promise Raid Card with 5 hot swappable 250gig 7200 RPM IDE Drives for around $3000. I now have a completely functional Windows 2000 Server with a million times the power for Less than half the cost. Now I am getting ready to replace the Old Snap Server with a similar Box so I can now Right Scripts that can connect to the server create the private shares when I create new user accounts. You can't do that with a NAS server. I found the Manageability of the web based software to be very painful. You can not sort anything. You go to create a new share and assign permeations to it. The user list is not in any kind of order and there is no way to sort it. It sucks scowling down through 500 users in NO ORDER AT ALL!!! And try to find the user that you wish to give rights to. It completely blows my mind why anyone would do that... If you would like to spend $7000 on storage server for your network Give me a call. I will build you 2x the computer with 100x the functionality and I will pocket about $4000 profit of the $7000 you paid me. Steve Roberts Network Administrator Fullspectrum Telecom Clearwater FL