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JTR7

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 10, 2010
38
0
Hello all,
Right now, I've got a Dell running as a terminal server in our office for our private contractors to telecommute. We have 5 employees. Myself, an intern, an independent contractor, and 2 partners. I store all of my data on my local machine. The partners have shared volumes on the server mapped to network drives on their XP machines. The intern logs in via remote desktop and stores all of his data on the server. Our private contractor does the same as the intern. I'm in charge of all of our IT. I will be telecommuting next year.

Since I will be living in a dorm, I will want to save all my information on the server back at the office. I don't want to be responsible for secure information being leaked if my MBP walks off. I do not want to use remote desktop for Mac. Since we have some different needs now, it makes sense to take advantage of this opportunity to replace the Dell. One of the partners can take it (it runs XP, Core 2 Quad) to replace his aging HP at his desk (P4, :-(). I'd like to log in via VPN. However, I don't want the partners to change their method of login. So my question is can they continue to map a network drive using OS X Server's file sharing feature? If the intern and the private contractor log into the VPN can they have network drives mapped?

I will be running a web server with several relatively large databases (few MB each). I will have the VPN server running for 3-4 people (we might hire an additional employee) concurrently. I will also have file sharing for all the users (must be capable to do it for all of them simultaneously). I'm considering a couple options.

1. Mac Mini Server (worried if it will handle the databases. I also have a 1.5 TB eSATA HDD that I kinda want to use, it has FW but I like the faster transfers, I'd buy an expansion card for an X Serve).
2. Harpertown X Serve off eBay (new condition, much cheaper than a new Nehalem)
3. Wait for new X Serve release and then buy a refurb current model.

Which do you think is best for my needs?

Oh, and I was wondering if OS X Server has something similar to terminal services on Windows XP?
 
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