Xserve storage - replace Mac with X-serve?

Currently using a G3 (I know! Iknow!) as a fileserver. This had an external Firewire 120gig Drive attached for graphics dept and La Cie tape drive for backup. Digital photography has meant increasing storage - currently at 750 gig and rising.
Tape drive has just failed - need to consider my options and priotities - your thoughts, please.
Mine are - replace tape drive first?
Replace G3 - we are about to free a G4, and this could be used as replacement fileserver- would end users note any improvement in service? marginal?
Or bite the bullet for an X-serve?
could we still hang our Harddrives off this in a firewire chain or if you go down X-serve route is that a bit short sighted - should you be looking at Apple drive modules instead of external storage?
Any other issues I should consider - price is a consideration so if there is a 'Gold Standard' I should be trying to achieve, is there an optimal upgrade path that would allow me to buy kit one stage at a time?
Thanks

Hi BrendanK-
There is nothing wrong with a G3 with drives hanging off as a file server as long as it is doing the job.
Tape can still be a viable backup media. The tapes are small and easy to lock in a safe. The backup process can be slow as you know. I have clients that still rely on tape for "deep storage".
The G4 may show marginal gains processor-wise, but depending on which one you have it may have gig-Ethernet which would speed transfers up significantly.
Even with an XServe the basic I think the basic configuration comes with an 80GB drive with the expectation that data will be stored elsewhere. You can add a couple of drive modules to increase storage but you will have all of your eggs in one basket.
Be aware that you can run the XServer software itself on a variety of platforms. A Mac pro loaded with hard drives may do the trick for you.
Gold Standard to me means a system that meets your needs and 3 backups of data-one locked in a safe at another location, one locked up locally, and one always nearby and ready to go. No matter what you use for a file server, it means nothing if you lose your data.
Hope this helps. You can do this on a tight budget.
Luck-
-DaddyPaycheck

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http://www.howtomac.co.uk/
http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mac/15175-how-image-os-x-netrestore.html
http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mac/28828-mac-os-x-creating-image-boot-drive.html
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http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/resources/
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Just to be clear, there's a SAN here. You just don't have a SAN switch, based on your description.
I'm sharing out the volumes on that RAID unit via AFP and SMB over the GbE network, so that's really where the bottleneck exists
That's typical, and why I pointed to the GbE as the bottleneck. (If you listen very carefully to the server, you can hear the little skidding sounds as each of the SAN packets decelerates onto the GbE.)
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Xsan has a fixed price, and the SAN switches tend to show up on the used market; they're common in the enterprise space, and a 4 Gb SAN switch is not even remotely new gear.
If you need Big Cheap Storage, then Direct Attached Storage (DAS) approach will be your cheapest option. (You almost have a DAS configuration now.) A PCI-X or PCIe controller or a RAID controller connected out to a Big Dumb Disk Array, err, a JBOD, or into a Big Not-So-Dumb RAID Array. If you have a controller or an open slot in your Xserve box.
I'm leaning towards maybe just adding another 16-drive JBOD unit to the existing FC system to meet our short-term storage needs. That doesn't address my desire to get a dual controller unit. But really, how often do RAID controllers fail?
Um, how often? Usually only when you have no current backups and a deadline, in my experience.

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MrHoffman wrote:
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That statement makes no sense to me.
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Callee RC:
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Nadav-
You are the only person in the world who wants an old version of Server software. Most operations that need a server are running the latest \[10.5] or next-to-the-latest \[10.4]. There is no market for older versions than that. New versions with unlimited users cost US$1000. So only serious users buy it. There are not so many copies around. The software uses a serial-number system. If you get the discs, but no serial number, it will not run.
Mac OS X Server 10.2, 10.3, or 10.4 will install and run on any G3 on which you can install the same-numbered version of Mac OS X. You can install some newer unsupported versions using popular cheater programs. I have installed 10.3 Server on Beige G3s for use by Not-for-Profit Organizations that could not afford anything more expensive. Most uses for Server are I/O problems, not compute problems, so a fast computer in not needed, just fast Disk Access. When you have multiple Servers tied together, the high-availability of the XServe and XServe RAID are very desirable.

Architects office server: Xserve or Power Mac?

We're about to purchase a dedicated server for our office. At the moment a maximum of 11 computers connect to the server locally. Over the next couple years this may go up to say 15 (all Macs except for one PC). We work directly off the server, the main applications being Vectorworks (CAD & modelling), and Artlantis (model rendering), iCal, Microsoft Office and Retrospect.
We also run an extranet but use is limited, just a wiki available when people are out of the office. And we have AFP running for a couple of people when they work from home, but they download files to their machine before working on them.
So our main requirement is local performance/speed over the network. The server is in use 8am-7pm each day so admin can take place at any other time and we don't need hot swappable drives. Our current disk use is 160 GB although only 80 GB of that is our actual data (although disk use seems to be accelerating with our ability to make ever more detailed models).
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It'd be nice to have the ECC RAM but even this would seem of limited use to our type of needs.
Would the two gigabit ethernet ports make any difference to us?
Would there be any day-to-day advantage in configuring the Power Mac with two hard drives as opposed to one?

It'd be nice to have the ECC RAM but even this would seem of limited use to our type of needs.
ECC RAM isn't going to make much of a difference in a file serving situation.
Would the two gigabit ethernet ports make any difference to us?
Maybe. There is essentially no difference between the two built-in gigabit ethernet ports on the XServe and a PowerMac with a second Apple gigabit ethernet card installed, so you can get the same physical configuration on a PowerMac.
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Question about mac mini with Mac OS X Server

Hello forum,
first I want to say hello to each, because this is my first post in this forum.
I want to buy a mac mini, but I have further questions before i buy.
My Situation is, that currently I have a windows and a linux server (Windows => Exchange and Linux as a build server). Now i want to remove such servers and replace it with one mac mini server.
1.) Currently I have an exchange server...Is it possible to use Mac OS X Server to work like an Exchange server?
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Thanks in advance
Best Regards
Roman80

1.) Currently I have an exchange server...Is it possible to use Mac OS X Server to work like an Exchange server?
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Xserve storage - replace Mac with X-serve?

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