Thanks Tom. I am certainly not annoyed by your indecisiveness. Changing to a client/server network is a big step especially when your network is already working. I must confess that one of the big reasons I am on here so late is I am working on my computers. I am about to upgrade to SBS 2011 Standard Premium, which means quite a bit of work for me especially because I am not concerned with my song collection but all of my data for my office. I am considering changing from RAID 1 and RAID 5 to a RAID 10. There will be glitches with my clients.
I must say that SBS 2011 Essentials is an inviting way to go for the first time and certainly cheaper. If you are going to have more than 25 users, you can't use it, but that is unlikely. No CALS is a good drawing point. With SBS Essentials, you get:
An extremely user-friendly, wizard based dashboard. Automatic backups, which will centrally back up all computers on the network. Remote Web Access. (Forget RDC, LMI, VNC, VPN). Although you can still use those. But, it is an incredibly centralized remote access program, which is super secure. Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Technologies for Terminal Services or the perfect backup server for your domain if your system goes down. (With SBS, you can only have one SBS server on the network). Subscription services to Office 365 allowing Office and Email and Calendar, etc.
You don't get:
SharePoint Foundation 2010 Exchange Server SQL Server
With SBS 2011 Standard Premium, you get:
Centralized monitoring Automatic backup SharePoint Foundation 2010 SQL Server Exchange Server 2010 SP1 The ability to run 75 clients Remote Web Access Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Technologies w/premium Windows Software Update Services Windows Update Services
It definitely is more difficult to install, set up and tweak the standard version. But, if you use the wizards (in both versions you should ALWAYS use the wizards, it is much easier. I just prefer having Exchange, SharePoint and the networking of Office locally. I have much more control with my email with Exchange. And, while SharePoint can be purchased, it comes with the standard version and is probably the best networking software program designed.
I also found an excellent video on SharePoint. Unfortunately, it still doesn't show the simplified home page of content.
I WILL SAY THAT ONE THING THAT HAS HAPPENED GIVEN THE SANDEEP AND BERT SHOW ON SERVERS IS THAT WE HAVE SOMEHOW MOVED FROM WINDOWS SERVER 2008 STANDARD R2 TO WHAT SEEMS TO NOW BE THE DEFAULT: SBS!
