Hi
We are thinking of replacing our current setup with MacMini Server. We're a small creative agency with 8-10 users, mostly Macs but there is a 1 or 2 PC's for the admin team.
Our current setup is below:
2x2Tb Buffalo Nas drives connected to the switch
1x Dell Server with Windows Server 2003 installed
2x4Tb USB3 backup drives
The server is probably 10-15 years old (second hand) and is causing endless headaches with backing up the NAS drives. All of our work is saved on the NAS drives and the server is used primarily for DNS and managing the backup process to the USB drives.
The backup software (Backup assist) is constantly crashing half way through a backup just as it does when connecting the drive directly to the NAS and using the Buffalo software to do the same thing. Its got to the point where we need to do something about it as its started to cause us endless problems with DNS management too.
To get this fixed has then incurred constant external costs to the business which we are looking to avoid in these difficult economic times.
So we arrived at replacing it with a Mac Mini Server as knowledge wise we think we could probably fix any issue that comes up between me and another guy.
I have a few questions.
1. Does the Mac Mini Server have a Time machine function like any other mac?
2. Would we be able to attach the USB3 drive and use it as a destination to backup the Nas Drives and also the internal drives? (I understand the first backup (approx 2TB of data) would take a few days to transfer over the network but once done it would be much quicker and easier for us to manage)
3. Does it give us the ability to manage user accounts on the internal storage? Sort of like a private folder for each user?
4. What's it like managing DNS?
Cheers
Mark
We are thinking of replacing our current setup with MacMini Server. We're a small creative agency with 8-10 users, mostly Macs but there is a 1 or 2 PC's for the admin team.
Our current setup is below:
2x2Tb Buffalo Nas drives connected to the switch
1x Dell Server with Windows Server 2003 installed
2x4Tb USB3 backup drives
The server is probably 10-15 years old (second hand) and is causing endless headaches with backing up the NAS drives. All of our work is saved on the NAS drives and the server is used primarily for DNS and managing the backup process to the USB drives.
The backup software (Backup assist) is constantly crashing half way through a backup just as it does when connecting the drive directly to the NAS and using the Buffalo software to do the same thing. Its got to the point where we need to do something about it as its started to cause us endless problems with DNS management too.
To get this fixed has then incurred constant external costs to the business which we are looking to avoid in these difficult economic times.
So we arrived at replacing it with a Mac Mini Server as knowledge wise we think we could probably fix any issue that comes up between me and another guy.
I have a few questions.
1. Does the Mac Mini Server have a Time machine function like any other mac?
2. Would we be able to attach the USB3 drive and use it as a destination to backup the Nas Drives and also the internal drives? (I understand the first backup (approx 2TB of data) would take a few days to transfer over the network but once done it would be much quicker and easier for us to manage)
3. Does it give us the ability to manage user accounts on the internal storage? Sort of like a private folder for each user?
4. What's it like managing DNS?
Cheers
Mark
