You will get a million different opinions, but they are all fine. Of course, you may want a hot spare. So, a little technical.
Did I not warn you, if you ask 10 people, what is the best config for RAID, you will get four or five different answers. They all have advantages. There is nothing wrong with striped. You will just need to research it yourself. Doesn't matter what RAID you use (to a point). Just that you use it.
There are plenty of people on this board who know exactly what hardware to get for what you need. I spec'ed, built, and installed SBS 2011 from start to finish. So I should be able to assist with that. The only thing is that Dell still doesn't have the Sandybridge processors (which offer excellent price/performance). Another thing is that Sandybridge is old as of last week. Ivybridge is out, the server processors should be shipping soon. I'd suggest you wait for these to come out. The E5 and E7 Xeons are due out soon. E7 is aimed at the very high end. The E5-16XX series and E5-26XX series should be more than enough for AC, exchange, sharepoint, etc
Philip, if you go the server way, hire someone to do it for you. Watch, learn, install so you can administer some yourself. But, it is good if you have a GOOD IT person you can call that knows your setup. If Sandeep were in your area, you should hire him. Otherwise, I would not just take our word for it on equipment. THIS IS A COMPLIMENT TO SANDEEP, but my guess is you didn't understand a word that was said above. For me E7 is a chess move.
SBS is an excellent operating system. Little secret. You don't even need CALs. If AC and SQL can run on WIN 7 Home Premium, it can run on SBS. You can use Windows 2008 Standard Server and be just like your hospital and any other large corporations that need domains and sub domains and more than one server. But, Small Business Server is just that. Made for small businesses. And, you can certainly run AC and SQL on it. And, I don't know how much the person is making in half a day. If they are losing that much money, they must be listed in Forbes.
And no offense to Dog. But, am I reading your post correctly? Are you actually suggesting that an AC user go out and purchase four servers, OSs, GFI Faxmaker, which is rather pricey. I am guessing a Brooktrout fax board for a grand?
Seriously, that is a nice setup, but we are just trying to get some users to get a one server. I doubt anyone will buy four.
Oh, there goes another person with an opinion on RAID. She says go with a RAID 1 for the system drive and an entirely different drive in a RAID 5 with a hot spare and a hot swappable drive.
