1 Office, 3 PC's. Synchronisation? Need Help!

[neoglow]

Hi guys, need a little advice here...

I work in an office that has 3 PC's, all are linked together with internet through a router. Different work is carried out and saved on each machine, so for example; PC 1 is used for Accounts and PC 2 is used for Orders. Each machine is used everyday so each machine is constantly being updated with its individual use, ie; Accounting and Ordering. The problem comes when some data on each machine is out of date to the other, for example; Accounts data on the Ordering machine would be out of date to the Accounts machine. In a nutshell, we need synchronisation. At the moment, I am manually copy and pasting the up to date files across the network to the out of date machines so they become all the same. Unfortunately this is time consuming, fiddly and in the past up to date data has been overwritten by out of date data. Oops!

Anyway, as far as I know (thats why I'm asking you guys) I have a couple of options.

1. Can you use Windows XP or a program to sychronise all machines on the network at a click of a button each night before we shut them down and close? So the next morning all machines are the same.

2. Is a Server the way to go? I've built many PC's before but not a Server. My first question is Operating Systems...can you build a Server machine and install Windows XP to control the synchronising of each machine? Secondly, if XP is ok for a server machine, how do you configure programs like Excel and Word to save the data to the Server automatically and not the local machine. Is this called redirecting?

Anyway, any advice at all will be a great help, I need to gather lots of info to get this done since work are relying on me to complete this, none of the others have a clue about PC's.

Regards, Mark.

[mid]

Sounds to me like you need a single, central copy of the files. A server would be an ideal method to go, but if you're short on cash then shared folders on the individual boxes you already have would do at a pinch.

[Cobertizo]

By the sounds of things, synchronisation might not even be necessary. If you just set up a shared drive/folders, then everyone could access the same accounts files from a single folder on the accounts machine and so on. Alternatively, you could have an extra computer on which all the files for the network are located (acting a bit like a server, but you don't need a server version of the OS - standard Windows XP (or Linux if you want to save money) would be fine). Alternatively, you could buy some Network Attached Storage. But I have a feeling that that is rather a pricey option for what you require.

[EDIT: i.e. as mid said more quickly and more succinctly.]

[Paleface]

Well, if you're all on XP, you could pick up one of those little Netgear Home-SAN type boxes (about ?70) and then whack in a cheap ATA-100 drive (abotu ?80) and you've got ?150 of network storage anyone can access (and that isn't in a computer). You do need to be running Win2000 or XP to get them to work, though, which sucks a little, but it might be an effective solution. Stick in a pair of disks and you can basically RAID-1 them in there, which helps on the integrity front.

[kernow]

yeah, network em, centralised storage with a backup policy.