Small office network questions

I have a small office with 4-5 mac computers. I have a Mac mini set up as a file server and I use a standard cable connection for my internet service. I use a wired router (ethernet cables) all going to a netgear switch.
Just bought a mac mini and a drobo storage device. I have successfully set up the drobo on the mac mini and I can "see" the files and read & write to the external drive. I also have a few other people in the office -- which will need access to the drobo via the network, but have a few questions there:
1. I don't see the name of the other computers that can connect to the unit. When I get on one of the other machines and look for the drobo I can find it & edit files but from the mac-mini side, I can't see the proper name of the other computer. How do I do this?
2. Can I limit which folders are accessible within the drobo that attached to the mac mini
3. Am I missing anything from a safety standpoint? Can Anyone come into my office and access the files that are on the mac/mini drobo? Worse off, is the mac mini vulnerable to the outside world with this setup?
Thanks for the help, new to all this networking stuff.

It's been a week, so i don't know if you have already worked this out, but...
while I am not familiar with your router, when I have used linksys before, i find it better to use static IP addresses for everything. Try setting static IP addresses and make sure everyone's mask is 255.255.255.0. Some routers also have a flag to allow computers to see each other.
Best of luck.

Similar Messages

How to setup a small office network

Hello,
I am looking to setup a small office network comprising 6 G4 macs (existing computers) that have been upgraded to the newest OS version. What is the best way to go about networking these computers together in terms of being able to share files, internet connection, access to peripherals and also implementing a firewall.
Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you

1, Get a cable internet ISP account; depending on your service you should be able to secure a 5Mbps down and 2Mbps up on the cable e.g. Cox or Comcast.
2. Get a good router. The mass market Linksys and Netgear routers aren't very good in terms of reliability. I use a ZyXEL P-330W router is the best I've ever seen. Its reliable and very efficient in terms of throughout. The Apple Airport Extreme is good.
3. Set up the router to support UPnP. This way all computers will be able to share iChatAV video conferencing. If you enabled "port forwarding" only one Mac would be able to use iChatAV video conferencing.
4. Set up your router for DHCP to dynamically issue Internet address to all your computers.
5. Setup the wireless router for encryption such as WPA. This will encrypt wireless communication.
6. Setup the wireless router for only your computers. You'll have to get the MAC/AirPort ID network addresses as expressed in terms of an xx:xx:xx:xx address. You can get this thru your Systems Preferences -> Network window -> AirPort (in the sidebar) -> Advanced button.
7. If you have Ethernet in your office then skip steps 5 and 6 above.
8. On each computer open up the System Preferences -> Sharing and check-off the File Sharing. Set your user access preferences appropriately.
9. Get a Network enabled All-in-one printer and setup Printer Sharing options. Hook-it up to your network and add your printer by clicking on the "+" sign in your "Print and Fax" Preferences.
10. Don't enable Apple Firewall on each Mac. The router will be the Firewall.
Ok. That's the short-hand.. plug it all in and go!

Randomly monitor small office network

Looking for a user-friendly, dummy-proof article on creating a small office network from a total of four Mac's (3 iMacs, one Air), allowing the administrator to randomly monitor without detection the real-time activities taking place on the other two machines. Triple points for iOS monitoring capabilities, as well

Hello, rjbm_exact.
You definitely need a managed switch and a Cisco Small Business (200 or 300 series) can meet your requirements. You can setup separate VLAN to segregate user access level. Are you also looking at expanding your wireless (guest access)?
Let me know if you need more assistance or e-mail ([email protected]) me directly. Kind regards.

Best practices for setting up users on a small office network?

Hello,
I am setting up a small office and am wondering what the best practices/steps are to setup/manage the admin, user logins and sharing privileges for the below setup:
Users: 5 users on new iMacs (x3) and upgraded G4s (x2)
Video Editing Suite: Want to connect a new iMac and a Mac Pro, on an open login (multiple users)
All machines are to be able to connect to the network, peripherals and external hard drive. Also, I would like to setup drop boxes as well to easily share files between the computers (I was thinking of using the external harddrive for this).
Thank you,

Hi,
Thanks for your posting.
When you install AD DS in the hub or staging site, disconnect the installed domain controller, and then ship the computer to the remote site, you are disconnecting a viable domain controller from the replication topology.
For more and detail information, please refer to:
Best Practices for Adding Domain Controllers in Remote Sites
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc794962(v=ws.10).aspx
Regards.
Vivian Wang

Problem using File sharing in a small office network

I have a problem using File sharing on an Imac and Macbook Pro.
My office has a small network running Windows Small office file server 2003. I have one Windows 2000 PC connected to it and 3 Macs, an 2.4 gHz Intel iMac running Leopard 10.5.6 , a MBP running the same and a Mac Mini running 10.5.
From the Finder Shared window of the Mac Mini, I can see all the computers on the network. It also used to be the case for the iMac, but the MBP could never see the Windows PC’s, not the server or the Win2000. This wasn’t a big problem as I was communicating between the Macs and using the shared printer on the iMac.
On Monday Jan 19 the iMac was suddenly unavailable to the other 2 Macs. It was working normally on the Friday. The iMac can access the Mac Mini and copy files to it. The Mac Mini can see the iMac but cannot access it. Even trying to connect as, ends in a failed connection. I have tried rebooting, turning File sharing off and then on again to no avail.
The iMac now also cannot see the Windows PC’s which it previously could.
To get files from the MBP for printing, I now copy it to the Mac Mini and acces the folder from the iMac, a very tedious procedure. I don’t know why this happened and am scared that the Mac Mini is going to do the same thing.
All three computers are also running VMware 2.0 with Windows XP pro, and from VMware the server is visible on all the computers.
Any help will be much appreciated, I live in a small town in South Africa and the local computer suppliers have no knowledge of the Macs.
I think that the problem with the iMac may have started after a software upgrade to 10.5.6 but I am not entirely sure.
Thank you
ajdk

Well, you're current method sounds pretty good. But if you want to user a file server, hey go ahead.
What you want to do when you centralize project files is to keep track of which one is the newest and becareful not to overwrite files with the same name. So you either have to set up individual spaces on the server (separate AFP/FTP folders maybe), or you'll need to run a file checkout service.
The individual space is cheaper, but it's not much of a difference from backing up to the network drive. Since you have Gigabit connections, you might even opt to save ALL the user files on the server instead of just the project files.
If you want to run a file checkout service, there's two approaches. You can run a service that can host any kind of file, or you can run a version control system for each kind of application (Photoshop, Word, etc.). Please notice, that as you read further and further along, the methods become more and more expensive and complicated. Once you get to this point, it will be necessary to purchase or build software in addition to the Mac OS X Server package.

Setting up a small office network - advice needed

We are to move our small office (3 people) from a shared office environment to our own office space. That has the huge advantage that we´ll finally be Mac-only, but the agreeable disadvantage that there is no longer a networking professional around. And this is where I enter. I now have to find a solution on how to set up the network, and I do not have experience in that field (though I am fairly experienced with OSX).
As of today we have a G5 iMac, a G4 powermac and a G4 iBook. In the not too far future we will be getting a proper G5 powermac as well.
The G4 is used for low key office applications, Word and Mail mostly. The iMac is the workhorse that runs all graphic/video applications. It also is used for presentations once in a while, so that this machine is not always available. The iBook is used for writing and e-mail plus some light-weight field editing.
I would like to find a solution that we could store all important files on one computer, so that it would be easier to make regular back-ups. And everyone could easily access those files.
It would be great if data from iCal and Adress Book could also be stored centrally, such as that addresses are available for everyone, and updated calenders are available for all employees.
As the budget should be as small as possible, I was wondering if we could use the G4 powerbook (867mhz, 1gig memory) to run a sharing service in the background. Then I could also install a second harddisk and use both hdd as a backing-up-raid. Once in a while I would make a backup on a external firewire disk.
Is this a possible solution, or should we rather have one machine dedicated as a server. Would it be sufficient then to use the G4 as that server and buy a MacMini or iMac as the office machine?
Since it is a small network, would I still need an OSX server license, or is the standard OSX enough for this?
iMac G5 20, G4 QS 867mhz, iBook G4, PB 190, and a Pentium that I haven't switched on in months... Mac OS X (10.4.3) Experienced with technology, just not with networking...

There are two ways to set up a network:
1 peer-to-peer
2 client-server
Peer-to-peer is cheaper, but not reliable. Apple supports peer-to-peer in OS X. (In fact, in all versions of the Mac OS since System 7.) You can have up to 10 users connected to any one machine using peer-to-peer. (Warning... if you have more than five users, that machine is going to get slow.) The various peers are used as normal workstations while sharing. You have three peers, and may get one or two more, so you can use peer-to-peer. Just don't overdo it. Your planed usage of a few Word docs and a few graphics files sounds about right.
Under OS X the peers are limited to sharing specific folders only, unless they use 3rd-party software such as SharePoint, which allows the sharing of any and all folders.
It seems that you plan to use the G4 as a 'server' using peer-to-peer. You also seem to be planing to add additional drives, and RAID. I'd get a high end IDE PCI card, or a FireWire card, or a SCSI card, for the G4. Depending on which G4 you have, you can stick up to four hard drives in the case if you go IDE or internal FireWire or SCSI. External SCSI or FireWire drive configuratins are limited only by the drive slots available (7 for low-end SCSI, 15 for high-end SCSI, 63 for FireWIre) and the space available. (And, of course, the budget availanle...) You can get dedicated RAID controllers.
For backup I'd get DVD or tape. Tape holds more and is easier to use, but is expensive (you have no idea how expensive, but I suspect you'll find out) and can be finicky. DVD is a lot cheaper, but it's slow, and someone will have to sit and feed discs into the machine. This will get old really fast. If your backup requirements are modest, DVDs might do, but probably you'll need something else. You could just buy an external hard disk and back up to that...
Apple charges US$500 for OS X Server 10 seat version. (They charge $1000 for the 255-seat version.) OS X Server should run on the G4, and will turn it into a full-fledged server.
Any of the O'Reilly books on OS X Server and/or on Samba should help you get started. O'Reilly's _Using Samba_ has a section devoted specifically to SMB on OS X Server which should be quite helpful.

Computers on small office network - names getting confused on iChat

We are using bonjour and iChat on the computers on a small airport network in our office as an instant messaging solution in our office - however, 2 of the computers (which are named differently) keep getting confused and both being called the same name.
I have done the fix where you go to System Prefs, Users & Groups and then set the address book card to that particular computer owner, restart the computer and then open iChat (using bonjour) - it saves the name but then my colleague becomes the same name as me on iChat - so we do the same thing to her computer (set address book card etc) and it changes her iChat name, but then also seems to override what I had set for mine previously.
Help!! What can I do to stop these 2 computers seemingly overriding each other? It doesn't happen with the other 4 computers sharing our network...

Hi,
In System Preferences > Sharing is the Name the Computer has.
This does play a part in any Bonjour Connection.
It is this name that appears in Shares in the Finders's Side bar.
Separate for that iChat and Messages that have the Bonjour Account Enabled broadcast the details from the My Card in the Address Book.
Issues can arise with some Server based Logins that create a Global Address book that changes the My Card.
You get similar difficulties on some DiskImage roll outs of updates and the like if the details of the Address Book are copied as well.
I am not sure what you mean by the "fix" in System Preferences > Users and Groups to change the My Card or the Computer's Name.
Yes you can click the Contact Card for that account and it will show you it in the Address Book and it should be th My Card.
Changing the My Card then does not alter which Card is associated with the Mac User Account.
There is no access to the Computer's Name
7:53 PM Wednesday; August 1, 2012
Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"
 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Lion 10.7.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Small Office Network Setup Help

Hi folks,
We are renting a small office in a floor which consists of many offices. The way internet is distributed here is, they have a verizon fios router and a couple of unmanaged switch, from which cables are run to offices for internet. One of the port on a switch is dedicated to our office.
In our office we have 6 computers and a network printer. The computers need to share files with each other and be able to print.
We want to isolate our office network from others. When we use an unmanaged switch, the version router dhcp assigns ip addresses to computers and we are able to access the internet. The verizon local ip is: 192.168.1.xxx. But we can also see computers that are of other offices, which means they can see us.
How do we create a separate network? Say we want to use IP 192.168.10.XXX or 10.0.0.xxx. We just bought a 24 port managed (L2) switch.
Thanks

Hello, rjbm_exact.
You definitely need a managed switch and a Cisco Small Business (200 or 300 series) can meet your requirements. You can setup separate VLAN to segregate user access level. Are you also looking at expanding your wireless (guest access)?
Let me know if you need more assistance or e-mail ([email protected]) me directly. Kind regards.

Small Office Switch Questions

Hi Guys,
Have a small office I need to setup with a few requirements.
I need to replace some unmanaged switches with one or two managed devices to better facilitate bandwith and general managment. There will be 5/6 VLANS (VOIP, Users, Wifi, CCTV ect), between 24 and 48 workstations requiring gigabit speeds and around 15 VOIP phones and 5 IP Cameras.
Due to costs, i'm quite happy to go with a 24port 1000base switch and a 48port 10/100base POE switch (as I can bounce lots of devices that don't need 1000 like printers and accesspoints down to the POE switch). I was looking originally at the 3750 series (1000 and 100 and using the stacking ports) but the cost may be a little high.
Used switches are not a real problem (unless anyone can advise on some really good reasons why) so picking up old cat hardware and getting the latest images are a option. Ideally, I want to spend under 1500 USD on something like this, but if it could be sub $1000 that would be great. In terms of the POE device, it needs to be standard POE not Cisco Pre-Standard.
Happy to keep in the same series even if it's older.
I've seen the small business series, but it seems that by the time you spend the money on two switches, you're nearly upto the prices of two used cats.
Any thoughts on those?
Thanks.

I was looking originally at the 3750 series (1000 and 100 and using the stacking ports) but the cost may be a little high.
You will no longer be able to purchase FastEthernet 3750 as Cisco has announced the End-of-Sale of the 10/100BaseTx of the 3560 and 3750 since January 2011. Cisco has also announced the End-of-Sale of the 3560G/E and 3750G/E back in March 2012.
So this leaves you with the 3560X and the 3750X and I can assure you this variety doesn't come cheap at all.
This leaves you with the last remaining stack-capable model, the 2960S. Like what Paul has said, the 2960S is a "triple speed" variety: 10/100/1000BaseTx. You can have uplinks of 1 Gbps fibre or 10 Gbps fibre. You can have "half" PoE or Full PoE.
But what sets the 2960S different from the 3750X (in terms of stacking) is the amount of switches in a stack. The 3750X can support up to nine but the 2960S can support up to four. This factor was set deliberately to prevent potential users to choose the cheaper 2960S instead of the 3750X.

Small office network

Hi there,
I want to install/move our office over the weekend and have some lose ends, which i hope can be answered in this forum.
First, let me start off mentioning what i intend to do:
we have three (airport enabled) iMacs sitting in the middle of our office.
At the far end of the office we have the DSL modem, a Gigabit Ethernet Switch, the airport extreme station.
At the other end of the office, I have a HP Color LaserJet (networkable) and a PowerMac G5 1.8GhZ DP (has an airport card installed).
I would like to have the three iMacs connected to the Internet, the Printer and the G5 PowerMac (which will serve as a server). I go about that by connecting the Modem with a jumper cable to the Gigabit switch, as well as the Ethernet cable (regular ONE-WAY) from the printer and the G5 into the Gigabit Switch, I assume. Then I lead one Ethernet Cable from the Gigabit Switch into the airport station, so that an (optional) laptop could access all of teh attached goodies.
Eeventhough the iMacs are airport enabled, I would rather have the option of having them hardwired as well (for speed reasons). I just plug those ethernet cables inside the Gigabit Switch as well?
Thats the technical part.
Now a question about the PowerMac G5. Everyone on the network needs to access files which I will store on the G5, such as photo library and some word and xls documents. Can i just make everything shareable?
Thank you in advance for any suggestions/input you might have.
G5 imac, powermac, etc Mac OS X (10.4.6)

It sounds like you have it right - if you're using wired ethernet connections just connect everything back to the switch.
For the base station, make sure it's running in bridge rather than route mode - using AirPort Admin Utility, turn off the 'distribute IP addresses' option.
As for the file sharing, I wouldn't share the entire drive, but designate one folder (or folders) as being shared. If this is running Mac OS X client (vs. Server) get a copy of SharePoints which will make it easy to select which folders are available for sharing.
Unless you're also running as a directory server you'll also need to make sure that the G5 has an account for everyone that is going to log onto it to access the shared folders. You could use one common account, but that's not recommended.

Newb needs help w small office network setup

Just started a new job at small start-up company that needs their 6-7 macs and a couple of printers networked. I'm just a designer and I'm trying to help but I'm not familiar with osX networking and I hope someone could point me in the right direction. Currently the owner has DSL on all the computers so there is an ethernet cable in each one to a router or hub i believe.
Currently when I try to connect via Go menu to Connect to server, there is no list. If I type in the name of one of the other computers and try to connect I get:
"Connection failed. The server may not exist of it is not operational at this time. Check the server name or IP address and try again."
I don't really know where to start or what questions to ask but I hope having an ethernet cable system already in place is a good thing.
Your help appreciated

I'm starting out with 2 computers near me, G4 HOMER
and G4 MINI. Both are connecting to the net via
ethernet. Personal File Sharing is ON on both.
On G4 MINI, I can see G4 HOMER, but when trying to
connect (Go>Connect to server>G4 HOMER) get
"ConnectionFailed -Server may not exist or is not
operational"
when connecting ot the server try using G4-HOMER.local as the server address.

Creating a small office network with Leopard

Here is the set up. I apologize for the length but I want to explain as much as possible.
I work in a small ad agency that has 6 macs: 1 G4 mini (Tiger), 2 PowerMac G4 Mirrored (Tiger), 1 Cube G4 (Tiger), 1 MacBook (Leopard, 1 iMac CoreDuo (Leopard).
The user names of our home directories are all over the place, some machines have the same user name (two different machines have the same user name "FRED" for example).
Some of us connect to our network wirelessly and some through the ethernet plugs in the walls.
We work off files on an External Hard Drive connected to a MacMini G4 running Leopard.
We have had so much BAD LUCK with this.
Some users can't save files that others worked on because of "insufficient privleges".
SOOOO... we switched the MacMini's OS to Tiger because it worked before we upgraded to Leopard. Now we can't back up the External Hard Drive either by copying the files to a Firewire External Hard Drive or by using something like Carbon Copy cloner.
I have clicked IGNORE PERMISSIONS of the External Hard Drive and the backup Firewire External Hard Drive and still no dice.
SO.... We are starting over. We are getting an Intel MacMini as the brain and two USB externals to set up as a RAID for the file storage. We are then using a third external USB to run time machine.
My questions:
1) Should we create new user accounts on our existing machines to "start over", using unique names? A server guy from another ad agency suggested this.
2) Is there a way to reset all file permissions on the existing external file storage hard drive so that EVERYONE can read and write? I would like to do this before trying to copy all these files to our new RAID External Hard Drives.
Sorry this is so **** long and confusing, but I can't find any straight answers.

jocko homo wrote:
Thanks for the reply. I wish we could get Lepard server but the budget didn't include money to get it unfortunately.
Any chance of looking at the budget again? It seems like an awful lot of work for something that only costs $500.
Does that mean I set the UID for every user to the same Number? I'm not up on what a UID is unfortunately.
It would definitely be a good idea. It probably won't do much to address your problem. It would just remove another layer of complexity. The UID is the user ID. Root is user ID 0. The first user is usually 501, second 502, etc. If you had each machine setup the same way, then user 505 on machine A would have full access to user 505's files on machine B. The actual names are irrelevant. It is the UID that is important.
But again, this does not address your issue at all. You actually need user 505 to access user 501's files. That is something else. Ignoring permissions will work for local file systems, but not for networked file systems. Unfortunately, I'm not really that familiar with network security in an application environment like MacOS X. There are certainly ways to do it and MacOS X server is certainly one way. I don't know the others.

Small Office Network Solution for Final Cut Server - Proxy Storage Etc.

Hi,
I haven't been able to find any answers for this question by googling, So I would love if anyone here had some advice. I have the 10 License version of Final Cut Studio with 5 clients at the moment. I would like to set-up our office in the most effective way, however we are a non-profit organization, so we are working with a limited budget.
My question is, does anyone know of any networking solutions for Proxy Storage and Media storage, that wont bottleneck, but is not as high budget/high tech as using an Xserve/XSan system?
Right now we would be looking at running Final Cut Server off of our 24inch Intel IMac (Going to beef up the RAM). We have a Gigabit Switch, 4 more intel machines running final Cut pro, and a direct attached Drobo for Media Storage. I know this is not an Ideal set-up, but it's what I have to work with right now. So, I'm looking for any kinds of tips and tricks to make this set-up work for us, and am looking at purchasing either a Network Attached or iscsI storage system for the Proxy Storage.
I hope this is a decent description of my situation, and would love some advice.
Thanks Very Much,
MacNomad

Hi,
I haven't been able to find any answers for this question by googling, So I would love if anyone here had some advice. I have the 10 License version of Final Cut Studio with 5 clients at the moment. I would like to set-up our office in the most effective way, however we are a non-profit organization, so we are working with a limited budget.
My question is, does anyone know of any networking solutions for Proxy Storage and Media storage, that wont bottleneck, but is not as high budget/high tech as using an Xserve/XSan system?
Right now we would be looking at running Final Cut Server off of our 24inch Intel IMac (Going to beef up the RAM). We have a Gigabit Switch, 4 more intel machines running final Cut pro, and a direct attached Drobo for Media Storage. I know this is not an Ideal set-up, but it's what I have to work with right now. So, I'm looking for any kinds of tips and tricks to make this set-up work for us, and am looking at purchasing either a Network Attached or iscsI storage system for the Proxy Storage.
I hope this is a decent description of my situation, and would love some advice.
Thanks Very Much,
MacNomad

Using Time Capsule to backup a small office network

Hi all,
I am hoping somebody may be able to tell me if this is a good plan or not. I have been really struggling to find a good network backup solution. I've been trying to make a Lacie Ethernet Disc Mini work but have finally given up on that one.
I am trying to find a simple solution to backup a network of 5 macs. 1 is currently plugged straight into my router, another router port extends to switch in another building which has 4 further macs along with other network devices connected. Crucially, there is no wireless access from this building to the router.
Would all macs backup to the Time Capsule, including those that are wired via the switch? If so, at what speed? I have heard suggestions that it can be a very slow process?
I'm not worried about any kind of streaming - purely a good backup device.
All advice very gratefully received,
Regards
Richard

Hi Richard,
I have a small business and chose to use Time Capsule as a backup for my company's network. We have 12 workstations and use all Macs, some wireless and some not. I'm an experienced Mac sys admin and have setup many networks, including designing and installing the network we currently have, which is driven by a Leopard Server.
Based on a year of experience working with Apple's newest airport extreme and capsule products, I would not use them in business and am moving towards a wireless network hd using Carbon Copy Cloner as my software. This is due in part to numerous calls to Apple for support on these items, having to reset them dozens of times, and being told by Apple support that using these products for business is not recommended.
Carbon Copy Cloner is a great tool for a backup, especially for workstations, as you can create partitions for each computer on your HD and CCC will create *bootable* backups of your HD - a great lifesaver if a computer fails and you don't have time to reinstall everything.
I will be putting the capsule and extreme devices on Craigslist for sale and hope to recoup enough to get the wireless network drive, which my research shows is the best way to get network backup solutions for small business.
I hope this helps.

Setting up of a new server in a small office network

Please forgive me for my lack of knowledge on this subject and it's perhaps something that I should get installed by a professional but hey, I like doing things myself and saving some money at the same time.
We have a network, running gigabit cabling, with 15 macs and 4 pc's connected and we have been working off individual machines and backing up via a drive connected to one of the machines on the network. Then when a job is complete we simply tell people it's finished, they copy it and then I burn it... not ideal and a bit clunky.
What I would like to do is get everyones work onto one machine and then backup and archive regularly from that machine.
Does anyone have any suggestions/advice as to what would be the best way of going about this. I'm getting slightly confused by xServe, Servers and all that stuff!?!?!
Any help would be much appreciated.

Well, you're current method sounds pretty good. But if you want to user a file server, hey go ahead.
What you want to do when you centralize project files is to keep track of which one is the newest and becareful not to overwrite files with the same name. So you either have to set up individual spaces on the server (separate AFP/FTP folders maybe), or you'll need to run a file checkout service.
The individual space is cheaper, but it's not much of a difference from backing up to the network drive. Since you have Gigabit connections, you might even opt to save ALL the user files on the server instead of just the project files.
If you want to run a file checkout service, there's two approaches. You can run a service that can host any kind of file, or you can run a version control system for each kind of application (Photoshop, Word, etc.). Please notice, that as you read further and further along, the methods become more and more expensive and complicated. Once you get to this point, it will be necessary to purchase or build software in addition to the Mac OS X Server package.

Small office network questions

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