Best Possible Network Configuration

Hey,

I have decided to stop using the peer 2 peer route and buy a server. I plan on using Windows 2003 Small Business Server and basically use it mostly for file sharing and possibly vpn, and web server in the future.

There are going to be 5 computers connected to it doing read/write constantly (ACT! database is going to be on it as well as many client files).

We want all 5 computers to have the ability to access the internet through the server as well. We currently have a router to do this.

What would be the best way to set it up for best file sharing performance? Someone told me putting two NIC in the server would make it faster but.. I don't know what that entails..

I am relatively new so a step by step instruction set would be great.... also...if that is not possible is there any online tutorials.. I cannot seem to find any. Thanks in advance!

If you want the best file sharing performance, buy a switch with a gigabit port and buy an appropiate gigabit NIC for your server. Then if you get 100Mbit NICs for each of the 5 computers, they should all be able to transfer files to the server at pretty much maximum speed. You could put two 100Mbps NICs in the server, but this wouldn't be as fast as a 1GB connection, and you'd need to configure the switch appropiately for that.

With regards online tutorials, file sharing should be pretty simple to setup. Make sure all the computers have correct IP addresses etc, create the neccessary accounts on the server so that permissions are okay, and then just setup the appropiate shares on the server.

Sorry I forgot that we need the computers to have internet connection somehow..In regards to the server and switch... the internet connection is through the server right? If the client computers connect to the switch and the switch connects to the gigabit NIC in the server.. how does the server connect to the internet (broadband ADSL) Do I make the server use software routing, DHCP, and Microsoft DNS or ISP DNS?
Currently we have all the machines connected to a router.. and just designated one of the machines to hold all of the files so this is not really client/server architecture.
Have never really worked within a server environment before. Just got out of school and started for this company with no IT.. so I have no real "trainer"...starting from scratch. I have only used routers in the past and have never done anything on this scale.. so sorry for being a noob.

For DHCP you need this to assign IP addresses to your computers. If you don't have a router, you will need to configure the server to do this. However, if there are only five computers, you could quite easily assign all the settings manually to each computer. But since Windows 2003 includes a DHCP server, you could quite easily use that.

For DNS, you'll only really need to host your own DNS servers if you're planning on setting up Active Directory. Otherwise, you can quite happily use the DNS servers provided to you by your ISP.

How does the physical connection work?

clients (connect to ->)gigabit switch (connects to)->server... then where do you go from there? where does the server connect to... considering the NIC in the server is being used for the switch. Do I just connect the switch to ISP Broadband Cable?

You have a gigabit switch. To that you connect every computer. The server then has an additional second NIC which is connected to the broadband modem. It is configured with the necessary Internet sharing software (or just the built-in Internet Connection Sharing) and shares the Internet to the other computers.

Thanks Edwin,

Does the second NIC have to be gigabit or can it just be a 10/100 standard fare... will there be conflicts with different brands? Thanks.

No, the second NIC need only be a standard 100Mbps one (or even a 10Mbps one), because it'll only be connecting to the modem. The speed of the Internet will be the limiting factor here (unless you've got a 1GB Internet connection, in which case lucky you ). You should find that different brand NICs should all work fine together in one computer.