I'm working with a small charity that runs four Dell Dimension computers -- P166 or so -- as a peer-to-peer network under Windows 98. The network is frequently slow and unreliable (surprise, surprise!). The charity director's computer functions as her workstation plus the "server," so to speak, with the important shared folders residing there.

 

The charity asked for a proposal to update the network and got a very good client-server recommendation which, unfortunately, would cost about four or five times as much as this charity can spend. The client-server solution also calls for continuing support from someone skilled in server maintenance -- a service contract that also is not afforable from its standpoint.

 

The charity asked me to have a look for a cheaper solution. As I looked around, it struck me that the charity's needs are really quite modest -- common access to Word documents and a small database that runs under Access 2000, plus basic email and Internet. One person on the charity's staff is fairly knowledgeable about Windows and Office, and currently he's able to keep things going with this peer-to-peer network.

 

This leads me to the following questions:

 

1. Do you believe a peer-to-peer Windows XP network would work for this organization? I know the client-server solution is faster, more elegant and more scalable, but I'm concerned about the cost -- and about the likelihood that I, as a tech volunteer, would be pressured at some point to become knowledgeable about server maintenance and become their network guy. (That's beyond what I want to do; for now, I mostly recondition used donated computers for their use.)

 

2. What's the cheapest way to get these folks basic Windows XP computers that would be easily maintainable by tech volunteers like me? Just good ole' www.dell.com? The charity staff is a modest hard-working group of folks that wouldn't mind hanging onto the old monitors, etc.

 

3. What's a good reliable and inexpensive backup solution for a little network like this one? 

 

4. Silly little question: They're now hooked to a cable modem by a wired router. If I replaced that with a wireless router that had four Ethernet ports, I could just serve their current network plus add wireless. But to add another computer, wired, could I plug another router into the new wireless router for expansion? (Inexpensive wireless routers seem to max out at four ports, but maybe I'm just not looking hard enough for, say, a six-port router with wireless.)

 

Thanks in advance for your advice. Also: If there's a cheap client-server solution out there that's easily maintainable by someone skilled at Windows and Office, please point me in that direction. But, as I indicated, it's got to be so simple to maintain that the charity wouldn't even feel like calling me if something went wrong. (I can't afford to install something like that for them if it means I suddenly become the on-call technician.)

 

BridgewaterGuy