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Simple small office network

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  • 20-04-2016 10:21am
    #1
    newdigi
    Registered Users Posts: 76 ✭✭


    I've searched online for solutions but either I haven't been able to find the exact information i'm looking for or there's so much information I'm confused!

    Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction....

    I'm in an office with 3 laptops (which may increase to 5 or 6).

    All currently working independently.

    I'd like to be able to allow everyone to share files onto a common drive that we can all access at any time.

    Don't think I need anything more sophisticated than that for now apart from being able to all print to the same printer, but I figure a wireless printer wpoould suffice for that.

    Do you think I need some sort of hub or storage device, or would a cloud solution work best?


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    #2
    syklops
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,966 ✭✭✭✭syklops


    A cloud solution would probably be the simplest to implement and makes things very easy from a backup point of view.

    ANother simple solution would be a wireless harddrive. I would recommend the My Passport wireless backup

    It connects to your wireless the same way your wireless printer would and allow files to be shared among several machines.

    The best (easy)solution in my opinion would be a mixture of both of these. Basically you mirror your files on your wireless harddrive on the cloud. If the harddrive dies or gets stolen, your files are in the cloud. If the internet is down, you have the files on your harddrive.


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    #3
    ED E
    Registered Users Posts: 36,167 ✭✭✭✭ED E


    Be careful in an unadministered setup like that. You stick all your files on a NAS drive (Networked Hard Drive) and everyone can access them. Then Susie opens a malformed PDF in her emal and gets infected with Cryptowall which encrypts that entire drive and you have to pay €300-600 to unlock them.

    A cloud solution like Dropbox for business gives you versioning protection so that Susie getting infected doesn't bite you but may be a little sluggish if your internet connection is slower, say less than 10Mb.


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    #4
    eezipc
    Closed Accounts Posts: 534 ✭✭✭eezipc


    You have two options.

    If you have decent broadband, you should use something like Onedrive, Dropbox or Google Drive. An app can be installed on everyones laptop and you can decide who gets to access what. This is handy as it is Cloud driven, you can access it anywhere and it tends to be backed up in case something goes wrong.

    The other option is a NAS box. Something like this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Synology-DS216j-Desktop-Attached-Enclosure/dp/B01BVDJGPE/ref=dp_ob_title_ce
    This is better if you have slow broadband. Plug it into your local network and set up various shares. IE you can set up an F: drive, G: drive. It's what alot of people are used to.
    However, you need to have a backup of that data. As ED E mentioned, if you get caught with cryptolocker there is no way to get your data back without a backup.
    If you go down the NAS route, you could also use Dropbox/Onedrive as a backup as well though. Or use online backup companies such as mozypro/Asigra.


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    #5
    newdigi
    Registered Users Posts: 76 ✭✭newdigi


    that's loads for me to go on. Thanks a lot. Definately was information overload for me. Always nice to have recommended solutions.


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    #6
    eezipc
    Closed Accounts Posts: 534 ✭✭✭eezipc


    newdigi wrote: »
    that's loads for me to go on. Thanks a lot. Definately was information overload for me. Always nice to have recommended solutions.

    No problem. It really is not that difficult though. If you have good broadband, go with Dropbox or similar. That is the best, easiest and cheapest.


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