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Hi newbie to spiceworks here…

I’m in the process of upgrading a small office’s network infrastructure. My client was looking into getting a server but I sorta steered her away as they only have 11 employees and their email is hosted by another organization. There main need would be for file storage and sharing so I’m pushing for a NAS box.

Office: 14 computers and 1 MFP

Computer Lab: 16 computers and 1 MFP

Here’s what they currently have as far as network devices

1 - 16 port switch

2 - 24 port switches

1 - TP-LINK 450Mbps Wireless N Gigabit Router

ISP - They are in a rural area and were running on a residential plan of 5 Mbps, but averaged 2 Mbps. Their ISP upgraded their towers to LTE and now they are at 10 Mbps avg. They also installed a second internet line, one for the office and one for the computer lab.

Here’s what I need to do for them

  1. Configure one internet line for each office and lab computers

  2. Keep both networks separate

  3. Configure a data backup solution

I’m looking into getting a

  • Cisco RV325 Dual Gigabit WAN VPN Router

  • Netgear ProSafe 48-port 10/100 Smart Switch w/ 2 Gigabit Ports

I’m fairly new to networking but have been in the IT field for 10 years mostly desktop support but am looking for any help or ideas with above said project.

Thanks

Darrell

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Does the Office network need to talk to the Lab network or vice versa?

Does the Lab need to share the same stuff as the office or separate share?

When you say they have 2 internet lines are these Wireless Boradband connections instead of ADSL/Fibre?

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Just a side note - If they’re running QuickBooks in multi-user, hosting the QB data file on a NAS is not a supported installation. Since you can’t install the QB database manager on a NAS, only one person at a time can use the company file, even if everyone’s set to multi-user. I finally gave up and put the company file on one of the Win7 workstations and have the auto backups go to the NAS.

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You can look at cloud services for the file sharing and eliminate the need to have any local storage. It would be a monthly reoccurring cost but it may give your client piece of mind.

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@ Neil8736

  • Office network and Lab network do not need to communicate with each other

  • Office network and Lab network will have seperate shares

  • Wireless broadband LTE

@ Gail8387

  • No Quickbooks

@rickmarvel

  • They want local storage as well as cloud storage, Which I believe the NAS im looking at…the Synology DS414 4 Bay NAS will provide.
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The Netgear ProSafe is a good product I’ve used in the past. For NAS I really like Netgear ReadyNAS. It has a great interface and there is off-site cloud storage that is slick to use. Good Luck!

1 Spice up