[greggomer1]

I am a bit surprised that the OS X Servers do not have SCSI as part of the standard installation choice.

I am setting up a Server for a Video and Audio Production suite. They will have 3 computers doing video, an Sound sweetening computer, and one computer for the office. All 5 computers will be on a Gigabit network.

The server will host mail, do simple filesharing, and archiving, host a web page, ftp, and run Streaming Server 3.

We will also use the NetBoot feature from time to time, say if the a desinger comes in, he can boot up the office computer into a Install with licensed version of Photoshop etc. How much of a hit will NetBoot put on the server?

I don't expect a lot of web trafic, especially initially. But do you think I should still go with SCSI? And should I get two smaller drives, or one larger drive?

Also, how much will I notice the 2nd processor, say if I had a dual 533 or even a dual 450 (saw one one sale for $1600), compared to a dual processor?

And as for RAM, and suggestions as to how much would be a minimum, and how much would be overkill?
Any thoughts, comments or suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks,

Greg Montgomery

[jarends]

I'd have two servers. One for the outside world, and one for netbooting, filesharing, etc.

For security and organizational purposes it makes sense to do this. Ideally one will be behind your firewall. (filesharing and netboot) and one outside the firewall. (ftp, web, streaming)

Depending on how many people hit your site, streaming could easily take up its own box.

[greggomer1]

I am all for 2 servers, but for now we only get one, we can expand as needed, as web server and streaming traffic won't be bad for now.

Assuming I only have one server, for NetBooting one or two clients how much of a difference will I notice with a Dual processor or SCSI? How much of a hit will NetBooting cause on the server?

Thanks again.

Greg

[jarends]

i dont think scsi will make much difference for serving web pages.

I do think it is a really bad idea to have your file server also be a web server accessable to everyone in the outside world.

a web server probably can get by with ide drives, but for serving graphics files i'd go with scsi.

[greggomer1]

Thanks for the reply, let me ask you this.

I understand that having a freely accessible files server on the is a bad idea. However, we would like to have a file server of sorts on line, one that you can log into securely to share documents and what not. That is, you can share or work on a document from home. Even an FTP server would be fine.

There has to be a way to keep this type of situation secure? Especially since the file/web/netboot server won't do any routing, and all other machines would be hidden on a different sub net.

Any thoughts on how best to do this, and keep things secure?

Thanks,

Greg

[jarends]

Here's what I'd do:

One server, expensive, scsi disks, lots of ram. Use this for file and print sharing, and netboot. Big disks, etc. Run an ftp server on it. Give it a non-public IP.

Server number two: could be a high end imac or a cube actually. use it for internet services. run web and email on it. give it a public IP.

then open some holes in your firewall to let appletalk over IP and ftp and have your router forward that traffic to the big file server on the inside. People could then connect to your server over the internet using either AFP or FTP.

Don't try to run it all on one box. The internet box really can be anything. A semi fast desktop G3 would work. You might have something around the office you can use.

[Gregory]

Take a look at www.xlr8yourmac.com for review on Sonnet Tempo RAID in G4/DP.