New computer

[fishdrzig]

Can someone recommend a good computer upgrade to set up as the Server for my Peer to peer. I like Dell products. Is a RAID 1 necessary and/or recommended? Thanks

[murmsk]

I don't think it makes that much difference what you buy. Reliability would be a plus. Dell has 4 hour service which may be important.

As for Raid ... I think you need a well thought out disaster plan .... on and off site backups etc ... Raid drives most likely would be a part if it. OD is wonderful in that any workstation can be used as the server in a pinch so if you didn't want to mess with setting up Raid drives you could setup a mirror server on an old computer. There are lots of possibilities.

steve

[savvy]

This is what I did/do.
I sure would like input if this is viewed as a not so good idea.

I bought off ebay, 2 lots of Dell GX 270 w/ 1gb RAM, 80GB HD, dual monitor card, Win XP Pro. Total of 8 machines. Total price, including shipping just under $750.
I use these as workstations.

For my server I have a 2008 Dell Inspiron 530 3GB RAM, 750 GB HD (overkill), second 750GB HD that only contains data ( documents, OD images, opendentaldata, quickbooks company, apteryx patient file), nVidia graphics card for 2 monitors.

One backup is done daily using external Maxtor 750 HD
(the flaw i foresee here is that this backup is never restored to a program to verify)
Daily end of day back up of data using usb pocket 180gb hd wich is restored on two home computers each night.
Programs are opened and data transfer confirmed.

Monthly backups on individual flashdrives (4 in a rotation) stored at home.

That's it.