SBS for Small Network?

Hi All, I'm helping my brother-in-law set up a network for his office,
and I have a quick question. He has a 4 user network, and their only
needs are file storage and printer sharing. Their website and email
are with a web host. Someone sold them a Poweredge with SBS2003 on it.
No one in the office is familiar with server administration so they're
having difficulty maintaining it. My thought is that they don't need
the server. I'm considering recommending something like the Seagate
Mirra or Maxtor Shared Server to make administration easier for them.
Its unlikely that they'll do a lot of growing within the next couple
of years. Before I make this recommendation, is there any benefit of
SBS that I'm overlooking?

Thanks,
Chris

ps - sorry for the double post, the text didn't appear in the first
one.

"Lenwood" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) ups.com...
> Hi All, I'm helping my brother-in-law set up a network for his office,
> and I have a quick question. He has a 4 user network, and their only
> needs are file storage and printer sharing. Their website and email
> are with a web host. Someone sold them a Poweredge with SBS2003 on it.
> No one in the office is familiar with server administration so they're
> having difficulty maintaining it. My thought is that they don't need
> the server. I'm considering recommending something like the Seagate
> Mirra or Maxtor Shared Server to make administration easier for them.
> Its unlikely that they'll do a lot of growing within the next couple
> of years. Before I make this recommendation, is there any benefit of
> SBS that I'm overlooking?
>
> Thanks,
> Chris
>
> ps - sorry for the double post, the text didn't appear in the first
> one.
>
Hi Lenwood.
I'd post this over in the microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs group for the
most thorough response, but I'll give you my two cents worth here. I have
numerous SBS clients and they all swear by Remote Web Workplace. Some of
them use Outlook over RPC/HTTP as well. Some of them need/use Sharepoint.
Some of them use Shared Public Folders in Exchange for centralized Contacts
sharing. Most of them benefit from using IMF in Exchange for spam control.
All of them at one time or another have used Shadow Copy to recover deleted
items.
A couple of benefits for me, as all of these clients' SBS adminstrator
(which I do almost 100% remotely), is to know the backup system works well,
and all user mailboxes are in Exchange so they are backed up properly.
Also, while setting up SBS Server 2003 requires care/effort/skill, ongoing
administration, other than keeping the systems properly patched, is not very
much work.
In short, I would not recommend they remove SBS.

dan wrote:
> "Lenwood" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed) ups.com...
>> Hi All, I'm helping my brother-in-law set up a network for his office,
>> and I have a quick question. He has a 4 user network, and their only
>> needs are file storage and printer sharing. Their website and email
>> are with a web host. Someone sold them a Poweredge with SBS2003 on it.
>> No one in the office is familiar with server administration so they're
>> having difficulty maintaining it. My thought is that they don't need
>> the server. I'm considering recommending something like the Seagate
>> Mirra or Maxtor Shared Server to make administration easier for them.
>> Its unlikely that they'll do a lot of growing within the next couple
>> of years. Before I make this recommendation, is there any benefit of
>> SBS that I'm overlooking?
>>
> Hi Lenwood.
> I'd post this over in the microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs group for the
> most thorough response, but I'll give you my two cents worth here. I have
> numerous SBS clients and they all swear by Remote Web Workplace. Some of
> them use Outlook over RPC/HTTP as well. Some of them need/use Sharepoint.
> Some of them use Shared Public Folders in Exchange for centralized Contacts
> sharing. Most of them benefit from using IMF in Exchange for spam control.
> All of them at one time or another have used Shadow Copy to recover deleted
> items.
> A couple of benefits for me, as all of these clients' SBS adminstrator
> (which I do almost 100% remotely), is to know the backup system works well,
> and all user mailboxes are in Exchange so they are backed up properly.
> Also, while setting up SBS Server 2003 requires care/effort/skill, ongoing
> administration, other than keeping the systems properly patched, is not very
> much work.
> In short, I would not recommend they remove SBS.

I'd agree, they've already paid for a whole lot of stuff that could be
very useful to them - they just might not realise it yet. Also, if
nobody in the office is familiar with server admin, why not offer to do
it for them in return for a monthly fee? After all you could do the
majority of the work remotely! Provided the users aren't running with
admin rights on their boxes they shouldn't give you too much hassle.
Famous last words there perhaps...

--
Chris.