Bill,
Here is my two cents worth. First, with computing, it doesn't matter how far away he lives. If he lives more than 200 miles away, he may as well be 1,000 miles away. He can still remote in. In some ways, I would go with what he is saying, because as it has been said many times on here, you would have someone to help who knows your setup.
That being said, I would highly recommend going with a server and a server OS such as SBS 2003 or 2008. The NAS you are certainly would server your needs, has redundancy and can do backups, etc. I didn't see where it could do shadow copies or another type of used files snapshots.
There are other NAS such as NetAPPs which cost ridiculous amounts of money with more functionality which you don't need. I would think of this NAS as a great addition of backup space if you needed it. Certainly 500GBs would be plenty larger enough and, as you say, other things could be put there. AC's database would take would take years to file that much hard drive space.
While on the topic of AC, yes, you would either install it on a server, install on server and move the database to a shared drive or best, install it on a workstation and copy and paste it to the server. I haven't done this with SQL, and I am nowhere near a SQL expert, but with the AC databases, you would ONLY need to put the six databases in a folder on the server and share it out.
I am not sure about all the drive letters. Maybe with the NAS, there is something do with that, but say you are using a server or a dedicated workstation for your databases or even a non-dedicated one for that matter. When you go around installing AC to all of the workstations, they will install by default to the C: drive under Program Files. You can, of course, change that and install it anywhere you wish or to any drive you wish. Generally, there is no reason to install it anywhere other than C:\Program Files\Amazing Charts. When you move the database to what you are going to use as a server, you can put it anywhere. Again, there is no need to do anything with the drive letter or change it, etc. Most centralized servers would be set up in the following way:
C:\ for the OS
D:\ data
E:\ this is just my preference, but ANYTHING I install to the
network such as AC or print drivers, Office, etc. I copy
to a drive I call E:\Installs. I even copy all CDs there.
That way, I can easily access any installations over the network, and I know right where they are in alphabetical order. I also don't have to back the E:\ drive up a lot, although I do back it up after a few new executable files.
Again, while your C:\ drive should be backed up on a regular basis, the D:\ drive is the only drive you need to make SURE is backed up all the time. You can always reinstall your OS from the CDs, but you can NOT replace your data. So, it's nice to know that ALL your data is in one place.
So, with this setup, your databases would, of course, reside on the D:\ drive. This is just the most common setup (with the exception of the install drive), but you could set it up anyway you wanted. No reason you couldn't call the data drive J:\ but it just makes more sense to go with C and D, etc. Not sure how Windows would handle the default shares such as C$ and D$ if the letters were changed around and Computer Management - Disk Management would be different.
I am guessing you are most likely on a workgroup currently since you do not have a domain controller. By using a server, you could use it in your workgroup as a "super client." You don't have to use it as a domain controller right away. BUT, you would have the option of using Active Director and connecting all your computers to it in a domain fashion without changing anything in your network setup. SBS 2003 and 2008 come with Exchange Server already, and you can add Exchange to Windows 2000 or 2003. It is much cheaper to go with SBS than purchasing Exchange separately.
Some NASs (I think) can work with Exchange, but the Netgear one cannot. I think the ability to use a server as a file server and other things would sway me in that direction. IMHO, SBS 2003 is the greatest little server for a small business. You will find no better deal. It already comes with Exchange and the company web (Sharepoint) is something you won't be able to live without once you start using it. Sharepoint is just the neatest thing ever, and your users will love it. The premium version has its own firewall (ISA), which is 500 times more robust than Windows Firewall and even better than many hardware solutions. Another nice thing about SBS is the wizards. It makes very easy to set up, although probably not a great idea to set it up yourself for the first time.
When you purchase a server, you can decide a model with a case which allows you to add as much RAM as you want depending on if you are using 32 bit or 64 bit, which most including myself would still be 32 bit.
So that's my opinion.
