happycomputers
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I need advice on working out a technical solution for a customer. I met this customer and she's an owner of a business. She asked me if there was a way to syncronize folders from her home/travel laptop to her desktop computer at work. She told me it was imperative that the data be available offline on the laptop, as she's often in the air without internet. I suggested Dropbox and it worked well--and she was very happy with it. Worked well once we put it on ANOTHER computer at the office...and it just kept growing from there.
They're now on a paid plan with dropbox, its on 5 desktop computers in the office, and still on the owners laptop, and on another employees laptop. They have 60,000 files totalling 35GB. They're now complaining intermittently that things aren't syncing properly, its slow to sync, and files are frequently missing. I've chalked some of it up to misplacing files, changing folder names, i've updated the dropbox client on all the machines, but I'm getting the feeling they want to upgrade to something else.
So here's the parameters I need to find a solution for:
*Software or Hardware solution, on-site or off-site doesn't matter (NAS, Server, software, whatever)
*Sync near-instant with online access (files they work with are at most 10MB)
*Easy to manage, hard for the users to screw up. (they move folders that contain 10,000 files without batting an eye--and yes, I've tried to train them on file management/organization)
*I must be able to monitor who deletes what, and when. The boss wants to know if someone deletes or changes files that shouldn't be edited.
*My customer would like the hardware to cost less than $1000
I've considered using a NAS on-site, but I don't know what type of management tools I could implement. I don't know much about SBS/Active Directory. A machine running Win 7 Business with a file share could work if I used some sort of VPN, but I can't wrap my head around that too easily if the customer insists on having offline access to the files.
Anyway, thanks in advance for reading my question, and thanks MORE in advance for any suggestions.
DG
They're now on a paid plan with dropbox, its on 5 desktop computers in the office, and still on the owners laptop, and on another employees laptop. They have 60,000 files totalling 35GB. They're now complaining intermittently that things aren't syncing properly, its slow to sync, and files are frequently missing. I've chalked some of it up to misplacing files, changing folder names, i've updated the dropbox client on all the machines, but I'm getting the feeling they want to upgrade to something else.
So here's the parameters I need to find a solution for:
*Software or Hardware solution, on-site or off-site doesn't matter (NAS, Server, software, whatever)
*Sync near-instant with online access (files they work with are at most 10MB)
*Easy to manage, hard for the users to screw up. (they move folders that contain 10,000 files without batting an eye--and yes, I've tried to train them on file management/organization)
*I must be able to monitor who deletes what, and when. The boss wants to know if someone deletes or changes files that shouldn't be edited.
*My customer would like the hardware to cost less than $1000
I've considered using a NAS on-site, but I don't know what type of management tools I could implement. I don't know much about SBS/Active Directory. A machine running Win 7 Business with a file share could work if I used some sort of VPN, but I can't wrap my head around that too easily if the customer insists on having offline access to the files.
Anyway, thanks in advance for reading my question, and thanks MORE in advance for any suggestions.
DG
