Networking question

[sagat]

Hi guys I need help and I fancy somebody here can solve my problem.

I have a network here with 10 fixed pc's, 5 Macs and a few more laptops both PC and Mac. All are running OSX 10.2+ and XPsp2. Well basically I want to install a central file server to allow the users to share files. Any ideas of what to buy and what software I'll need to allow both Operating Systems to connect with it? The users aren't exactly tech savvy so I'd prefer they access files through a standard GUI rather than some mad command line or FTP interface. Hope your expertese can help me out. Thanks in advance.🙂

 

[belvdr]

The one protocol they can all use is SMB. You could set this up using Windows, Linux, BSD, or OS X. The cheapest route would be Linux.

 

[sagat]

Somebody suggested to me using a NAS, is there any that you could recommend? Many of them claim to work in a mixed Mac & PC enviornment but I'm worried about complications. Really if I was to get a network drive I'd want it to appear on the users desktop as if it were a local drive. you know what I mean?