Building Thinkpad Network

[mbrad14711]

Long time listener, first time caller.

I am not much of a tech head, but I am building a network of thinkpads at my office. For several reasons, this network needs to be composed of notebooks. I chose thinkpads because they are so well made and because I regard them as designed for the corporate market.

I am having a paid intern from a local college install the network. I thought that there might be some good advice that I could get from this forum on what to buy and how to structure it.

Here goes:

There are four users
- Boss
- Associate
- Admin
- Intern

The boss and associate both need to run financial analysis software (monte carlo). Probably the full MS Office Suite will run on it as well including Access.

Occasionally, the Boss will need to do a presentation outside of the office.

The admin will be using mainly Access and Outlook.

The intern will do a little of everything.

All computers will regularly access files of about 100kb to 3mb from one of the computers which should act as a file server. Ideally, all of the actual file data should be kept on one machine, with a backup drive.

These computers will not have a static connection to the internet.

A wireless network is required. Unfortunately, data security is a serious issue and I would like the system to be as secure as is reasonable - that is, a serious concerted effort to break in by an elite group of cyber-criminals is something that I can tolerate, but not some part-timer jerk with a Dell in the parking lot.

The budget is about $25,000 (we already have great printers, but this budget includes any external monitors, keyboards, mice, etc.). Space is an issue.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[egibbs]

Don't try to make one of the TPs a file server - get a dedicated one.

You can get cheap Network Attached Storage these days - I use a Buffalo Technologies Link Station on my home network. Cost about $400 and gives me 160 MB of storage.

I think D-Lonk or Netgear also make a NAS drive, but it got terrible reviews - S.L.O.W.

If you have a few more bucks to spend (a couple $K) check out Snap Servers. They are more upgradeable.

Good luck,

Ed Gibbs

[mbrad14711]

Thanks for the insight!

[AlphaKilo470]

If the biggest files that you'll be pulling off the server are measured in a number of megabytes that can be counted on your hand and so can the number of computers accessing the server, I'd still reccomend having a desktop server and not using a laptop, but you don't need to spend alot of money. Search your local computer shops, eBay and even your closet or attic for an old computer that you can put back together and make a server out of. I'd reccomend for minimum spec is a Pentium II 350 or greater (earlier models had slower BUS speed), at least 128mb RAM (256 or better reccomended) and at least 8 or 10gb HD.

[gazingwa]

For a server, I use an old IBM PC300 P2 350 machine, run linux on the main drive, put a big secondary drive in it and use the second drive for network storage.

[mbrad14711]

Purchased this device. What a terrific option and very easy to use. Thanks for the recommendation!

[mbrad14711]

Love the Buffalo Technologies linkstation. One fairly minor problem is that most of the software that I use across the networks seems to each have different minor problems with the NAS technology. All can be corrected, but a bit of a hassle. Software designers don't seem to have really recognized the technology.

[egibbs]

The only problem I've ever had was with Drive Image running in DOS mode from a floppy. it just flat out refused to talk to the Linkstation, but I guess that's not too surprising - DOS was never known for strong network support. Anyone remember the struggles trying to get network drivers to "loadhigh"?

Be sure to update the firmware on the Linkstation. When I first got mine the HTTP administration server would die if you didn't use it for a few days, and you'd need to power the Linkstation off and on to wake it up. Updating the firmware fixed that and it has been rock solid ever since.

Ed Gibbs