mac Server 12 or just regular Pro peer-to-peer?

[Andrew5]

My office has 3 Macs using 10.7 and 10.8, and FM 12, one is a laptop that does work locally and remotely, the others stay in the office. We currently pay $29 to have 2 DB's hosted on an internet based site. I would like to have about 6-8 DB's hosted, but I believe at that point it would be better to have them hosted locally. I know Pro will handle up to 5 connections so I've been avoiding buying Server. The DB's are quite small, one is 33 MB, and the others are of a trivial size, used for printing forms and labels, and keeping checkbooks. 

 

I would like to be able to access all of them from inside and outside the office without having to pay a hosting company a lot of money each month. 

 

I suppose I could host them on one secretary's computer, which is quite lightly used, or buy a Mac Mini as a dedicated host to run a copy of FM or FM Server to host it on.

 

What does the jury say? Thank you. 

[Wim Decorte]

hands down dedicated server with FMS.  Live backups alone should make the difference at some point.

[Andrew5]

Doesn't Time Machine do that for me? Plus the DB scripts use "Commit" pretty frequently. I have used FM for several years, but never the Server version. 

[IdealData]

Reading between the lines I don't think you understand the backup implications (Time Machine is not the answer), nor the extra discipline involved in running your own server, either with FMP or FMS. You would also see a significant performance loss.

 

Wim is right to point out the benefits of FMS but the scale of your operation doesn't really justify FMS, although it might be worth it in the end.

 

Most hosting companies charge per file and as you have realised your charges will leap if you go from 2 files up to 8.

 

Have you considered merging all the files into one? If the files are pretty much independent at the moment then it could be easy, if they are more integrated then a bit more difficult.

[Wim Decorte]

Doesn't Time Machine do that for me? 

 

That's actually pretty bad.  Live FM files should be excluded from Time Machine backup (and from Spotlight indexing, and any other form of external backup)

[Andrew5]

Thank you to both of you, very much. As for combining files, I have had that idea. Apparently there is a way to do that automatically, without having to copy and paste each element from one to the other DB---- such as how I did it the one time I tried it. 

 

I could get away with two DB's, and paying for someone to host two, isn't too bad, if it wasn't too much trouble combining those files.

 

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