A friend of mine wants to setup a computer that other PC's (about 10) on a network could access to share and view files.  3 printers will be on it as well.

 

I guess it sounds like a network.  Networking isn't my strong point but I said I'd try it.

 

For starters I want and he prefers the connections to be hardwired.  Which means I'll need to buy a switch for his router as well.

 

1) What do people recommend I should do?  Just build/buy a boring PC with a few hard drives (is RAID 1 the best way to backup data?), create a shared folder with Win7 and go from there?

 

He wants to be able to have full control of files and the other computers would only have read only privelages.  Seems like advanced sharing in Win7 can do this.

 

He also already tried cloud storage ie Dropbox type setups and it didn't work.  Some of the files are quite large I guess.  But mainly they will be documents that needed revisions.

 

It's basically a small business.

 

2) Also should I run synergy+ and share the KB/mouse between his main pc and this one using an extra monitor or should I just setup a new pc with the usual peripherals?

 

3) Cost is an issue.  Obviously there are more advanced solutions like IBM blade but those are expensive  He wanted to keep the costs under 1000 USD.

 

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

edit:  Doing some quick research, would a NAS be something that would work here?  Can a NAS work on a switch/router combo?

Any ideas?

Heya Ryan, 

 

A NAS device would definitely fit the bill. I just did a simple search for NAS on Frys.com and all kinds of stuff pops up, ranging from single non-RAID devices in the hundreds ($) to full-on 8-bay drive enclosures. And they would pop right into an existing Ethernet network. Just pick one that fits the balance between cost and features. I recommend a bit of research on CNET to find a good vendor.

 

One of these days I plan on building a music server, and it will have a NAS RAID filer for storage.

Thanks yep I'm pretty much set on a NAS