Do I need OS X Server?

[nitz]

My company, a small publishing firm, runs an all Mac network. We are almost completely OS X. There are a few OS 9 stragglers due to old but crucial legacy hardware and software but they are about to be upgraded to OS X.

I have a 1GHz 512MB RAM eMac that is our file server of sorts. That is where all the source data and work files for our publications are stored along with a Filemaker database the we use to administer it all. There is also a Eudora email client running that checks and distributes submissions and manuscripts from authors. Because all this data is on this one machine, there are always people connected to it over the network and it sometimes acts sluggish. Users connect to this server over the normal network browser available in OS X (or chooser in OS 9).

Does OS X Server allow some sort of more stable fileserver functions? I'm not exactly sure what the advantages of it are and weather or not it could help us with our situation.

What I would really like to do is to host all this and all of our Filemaker databases on one machine and have it backed up every 12 hours. That might be a job for an X Serve though, huh?

What do y'all think? Thanks in advance for any help.

Nitz

 

[RAS admin]

I don't know if it would be any faster using Server. Server just add a few tools to make monitoring easier and lets you create filesharing groups with different permissions. It makes everything much easier but I don't think it would make it faster. Maybe a faster machine, Gigabit Ethernet, and Server software is what you need. You don't actually need an XServe, that is just to make it fit in a rack...

 

[nitz]

... and lets you create filesharing groups with different permissions.

Maybe that would help then. Isn't there a limit to how many people can be simultaneously connected via filesharing? Sometimes when 10 or so people are connected, if another tries to connect, the computer is no longer visible in the network browser. Would running these filesharing groups under Server help alleviate this problem? We also have weird permissions issues with file and folders sometimes even when we go into to their settings and fix them. Sometimes folders are locked or invisible to some users but work fine for others.

 

[RAS admin]

There are two different version of OS X Server. One will only let only 10 users connect and the other is "Unlimited". While this would definitely fix your problem with permissions and more then 10 users connecting, it is also pretty expensive for the "Unlimited" version. $999!

 

[RAS admin]

Maybe you should buy an Xserve G5. I just checked the Apple store, it comes with OS X Server "Unlimited" for free!