I'm planning on rolling out a new server, all shiny and completely under my control for implementation (No more dealing with 6 years of built up implementations, software installs/changes and configurations.)
Currently, we run Win Server 2k3 as AD, file server (shares), our inter-office IM server, and of course, offsite backup software. We don't live on a domain, but as a workgroup. It's dandy.
My plan was to run Windows Server 2012R2, sitting on a physical machine (VM/Hyper-V would be better, but I have to keep it simple. I can always virtualize later, right?) The server would run AD, host file shares, run Spiceworks Desktop, our IM server, offsite backups software, and probably our AV management tool. My initial thought was to set it up with two RAID 1 arrays, a pair of 1TB drives and a pair of 3TB drives, mirrored to each other. The Operating system would reside on the 1TB array, and the file shares would reside on the 3TB array, for ease of replacement, backup, expansion, etc.
We're moving from a local to a cloud-based CRM system, so all that would have to run on the server would be the above applications. The file storage would then be limited mostly to artwork for our design teams, which they copy off and work on their machines locally anyway, copying final products back to the server for use by the sales team. Should I continue with my path, or switch the 3TB array out for a NAS running a 3TB array, that links into AD for authentication?
I will be building the AD from scratch on the new server, and prepping it for eventual migration back into a domain environment. Files and shares will also be copied/rebuilt from scratch by hand.
Thoughts and criticisms welcome.