What would you buy?

Ok here's the background to the question; I've been allocated up to £250 to purchase a NAS box and £150 to spend on any software I want to help run the network :D......don't ask me why they've chosen these 2 things!!! This money is separate to my normal budget and can only be spent on the items it has been allocated for.

So….What type of NAS do you think I should be looking for? Any prefered brands / models or more importantly ones to avoid like the plague? Obviously at this price I’m going to be limited on size and RAID type.

Now onto the bit that I hope will draw the most recommendations / comments…..What software would you look at getting if you were allocated £150 to spend on anything YOU wanted? I know I should list what I already have, but I would like to know what people think without influencing them!

Thanks in advance for your views.

treesize pro
and Sony Vagas would both make my life a lot easier one is £20 the other??

£250? I would probably ask for another £70 and buy a brand new HP rack server and populate it with large Sata HD's

£250 isnt a lot for a NAS box. Suggest that you can get some network monitoring software for free (linux, nagios & cacti installed on an old PC), and can they increase the NAS fund. Failing that we have AD Infinitum which helps create users & their areas which is always useful for the new intake, print monitoring software maybe, but again you could use CUPS and Pykora. Who would have thought that i'd be recommending lots of open source / linux stuff. You can't really get anything fantastic for the cash (and weightings) they've given you

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Originally Posted by muppet

Ok here's the background to the question; I've been allocated up to £250 to purchase a NAS box and £150 to spend on any software I want to help run the network :D......don't ask me why they've chosen these 2 things!!! This money is separate to my normal budget and can only be spent on the items it has been allocated for.

So….What type of NAS do you think I should be looking for? Any prefered brands / models or more importantly ones to avoid like the plague? Obviously at this price I’m going to be limited on size and RAID type.

Now onto the bit that I hope will draw the most recommendations / comments…..What software would you look at getting if you were allocated £150 to spend on anything YOU wanted? I know I should list what I already have, but I would like to know what people think without influencing them!

Thanks in advance for your views.

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So long as your expectations aren't high i'm sure there's a cheap and cheerful, down and dirty NAS box with your name on it.

I think you have to be realistic, NAS at that price is just a glorified dumping ground for 'archival' of odds and sods - a large capacity usb drive basically with a nod to NAS through support of CIFS/NFS. As a device for storing user home folders, shares and if your feeling really adventurous stuff like vmware images via NFS then you need to up that budget to get something up to the job.

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Originally Posted by muppet

I've been allocated up to £250 to purchase a NAS box and £150 to spend on any software I want to help run the network

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£400? Buy a £99 server from Dell / HP (depending on which is on special offer this month) and a couple of extra SATA drives off eBay.

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David Hicks

For software to help manage your network, what about Microsoft System Centre Operations Manager? It's SMS & MOM merged together. See how much it would be if you put it on your MS licencing agreeement (providing you have one).

As for NAS, the cheapest option is to convert an old server/PC, stick a GB NIC and a TB HDD in it.

Wow, they really want blood out of a stone from you, don't they :rolleyes:

-Ken

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Originally Posted by wagnerk

For software to help manage your network, what about Microsoft System Centre Operations Manager? It's SMS & MOM merged together. See how much it would be if you put it on your MS licencing agreeement (providing you have one).

As for NAS, the cheapest option is to convert an old server/PC, stick a GB NIC and a TB HDD in it.

Wow, they really want blood out of a stone from you, don't they :rolleyes:

-Ken

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SCCM 2007 (systems center configuration manager) is the replacement product for sms 2005. SCOM is the replacement for MOM and as far as i'm aware it has no sms-esque functionality. Both products should be available via volume licensing.

I have a sneaky suspicion that this is just a token gesture to enable the powers at be to say hand on heart that they have allocated money for software and hardware development!!! Especially as I am not allowed to combine the funds to get either a half decent NAS or software solution. To be honest I’ve already bought a HP ML110 G5, 2GB RAM, and 2 x 500GB HDD’s out of my normal budget. Might just charge the invoice against the extra funding and keep thinking about the software….it’s a case of use it or lose it and I’m just not prepared to lose any funding I get.

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Originally Posted by torledo

SCCM 2007 (systems center configuration manager) is the replacement product for sms 2005. SCOM is the replacement for MOM and as far as i'm aware it has no sms-esque functionality. Both products should be available via volume licensing.

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D'oh, funny, I saw both the SCCM & SCOM products and never actually registered them as different products :D

-Ken