My wife and I both work at home and have all Windows based machines but now are switching to Mac. She's going to add a imac on her desk to compliment her Windows laptop. I'm replacing my laptop with a Macbook Pro. This will leave two desktops that are Windows based as well as a 3rd 'main' desktop. This 3rd desktop is more or less the server with 500 gigs of hard drive space and it's connected to two large printers as well as a fax/printer. It shares a data drive we both use to store our office files, photos, music ,etc We use these for home use as well as our business, mine is e-commerce, hers desktop publishing.
Well we are getting Macs this month but now I suspect my server has been hit with a virus and enough is enough. Now I'm ready to replace it with a MacPro but as you can see this a combo mac/windows office. I may go 100% mac someday but how well would it work if I replace my server with a MacPro. I know Windows PC's can't read mac drives but if these mac drives are network drives can my Windows PC's read them? Will it cause any problmes storing Windows files on a mac server? I guess I am wondering if my pc's will treat it as a server when it comes to files, printing, etc? I depend on this heavily and like the idea of protection of viruses. I know a lot now about mac computers but not as a server and am wondering if there is a version of OS X for servers or a way that this can be used? Linux is probably my other option but I've heard it's hard to use.
Well we are getting Macs this month but now I suspect my server has been hit with a virus and enough is enough. Now I'm ready to replace it with a MacPro but as you can see this a combo mac/windows office. I may go 100% mac someday but how well would it work if I replace my server with a MacPro. I know Windows PC's can't read mac drives but if these mac drives are network drives can my Windows PC's read them? Will it cause any problmes storing Windows files on a mac server? I guess I am wondering if my pc's will treat it as a server when it comes to files, printing, etc? I depend on this heavily and like the idea of protection of viruses. I know a lot now about mac computers but not as a server and am wondering if there is a version of OS X for servers or a way that this can be used? Linux is probably my other option but I've heard it's hard to use.