IMac as a server - How much can it take?

Hello,
At my school, we have a 20 inch, 2.16 Ghz iMac Intel Core 2 Duo with 2.5 GB of RAM set up as a server (running OS X 10.4 Server) managing 10 17 inch iMacs and 12 eMacs. We also have a few switches controlling the flow of the network.
At this time, we are dropping some packets and the server sometimes slows down quite a lot. How many computers can a server like this handle? We're wondering because we may decide to purchase an XServe instead because its technically a proper server and we would like the slowdown to decrease, otherwise it really interferes with peoples work.
Please leave a response if you know if there needs to be some changes made or if the iMac cannot handle 22 computers.
Thanks for you help.

Hi
How old are the switches? Are they gigabit? What quality of cabling do you have? What sort is it: cat5, cat5E, cat6, mixed? The question about how many computers can your server handle depends a lot on what the server is being asked to do. If you have 22 students all accessing the server continuously for video production then no the server and network would struggle. The same would apply for graphic production to a lesser degree. Especially if the server is providing LDAP Services.
If all the students are doing are word processsing, e-mailing, internet and printing then the iMac should be more than adequate. The other part of the equation is I/O drive throughout. The iMac has only one drive and on that drive would be the OS as well as everything else. There are things you can do to tweak and finetune AFP that might help server access but I think you should be looking at the physical structure of the network first.
I’m sure there will be others who have a similar environment to you will offer their opinions and advice.
Tony

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