WHS for the small business

[PINKTULIP]

There seems to be a bit of chat about the usefulness of WHS in the small business, so i thought i would share my setup.

I run my own photography business with my wife and as you can imagine we generate quite a bit of digital media and the file size from our Canon cameras is prerry huge approx 7Mb per image.

I have a gigiabit LAN in our office and two laptops being backed up to the WHS box.

The WHS is a Frankenbuild made from an old Dell Dimension and initially was just going to be a backup solution, but i have found i am using it more and more for additional functionality.

I have 6 drives of varying size totalling 2.5Tb which is filling up quickly, i also backup the server to the cloud using ASUS.

I created user accounts for clients in order that i can share artwork with them etc which works fine.

I have our admin printer hanging off the server so we can both print across the Wifi and LAN.

Another little application which we use constantly is Goodsync, we both need access to certain files while we are off site so i have created a share for Admin ( holds price list, supplier info etc ) if i change a file on my local laptop the next bootup will sync it with the server and then sync with my wifes laptop.

I think overall the WHS is a great solution for the small business, i would never have bothered setting up or paying for WinSvr2003 or similiar, and i think the ease of use of the WHS is a real winner.

My background is in IT and i can see that this is something i would definatley install and offer support on for a small business. The only downside is the name which i think may put certain people of as it is pitched as a consumer product.

[usacomp2k3]

Thanks for the great write-up! I love seeing how people are using WHS in their specific scenarios.

Have you thought about using Live Mesh in the capacity that you are using Goodsync?