help with network storage

[karolpl2004]

i set up a d-link dns-321 in raid 1 for a small office. they have 3 computers, 2 are xp, and one vista. the reason was that one of the xp computers had a drive failure resulting in loss of most important data. the most important programs are 2020 kitchen design and quickbooks. for 2020, i put all the remaining drawing files from the other two computers so that the entire network has access to them. saving is no problem, but opening is. when i try to open a drawing file from the NAS, the program crashes. the only way to open such file is to drag and drop it to the desktop. i would like to find out if there is a program that i can install on all 3 computers, to automatically back up or sync their individual design folders with the drawings to the NAS. second is quickbooks. i know i can back up quickbooks to the nas using the built in quickbooks options. for now, quickbooks company file is installed on the vista machine, and shared to with the XPs. but i would like to move it to the nas. when i do, i get errors that the company file cannot be opened because the host machine is missing software... any input on my problems would be appreciated.

 

[newtekie1]

I deal with Quickbooks over networks all the time, and let me just say Quickbooks is a pain in the ass. Basically, you won't be able to open a company file directly from the NAS. Quickbooks requires that the server components be installed on the machine that houses the data files. Using a NAS obviously means you can't do that.

Also, the program crashing might be due to not being able to access the file quick enough on the NAS.

I hate to say it, but a NAS was probably not the right choice for the situation, especially not a cheap NAS like the DNS-321. The DNS-321 is just painfully slow, RAID1 read performance only maxes out at about 12.5MB/s, which barely saturates a 100Mbps network connection, the Gigabit port is totally useless.

 

[karolpl2004]

well thats unfortunate.. as far as having all pcs automatically sync for backup purposes, what would you recommend? i dont mind sharing folders between computers.

 

[newtekie1]

It depends on how often you want to sync the data.

If you are just doing backups, then I suggest Fbackup. You can install it on each computer and setup up a backup job to back up all the data to the NAS, or other computers. You can then set the backup to happen at midnight or something, or even twice a day if you wish. That would work if you are only looking to sync everything once or twice a day but it gets a little cumbersome to do it more than that.