I am in the process of setting up an XServe to replace our existing Appleshare IP server. We have an existing WIndows network that our email, calendar, internet services all run through. The XServe will be for file serving only serving about 20 Mac users.
I know I can setup the server to integrate with Active Directory or I can just set it up as a stand alone server. The advantage of AD/OD is to us being able to automount drives, have networked home folders and utilizing the AD authentication setup. The down side for me is that we have in the past had problems with AD and our Macs and it usually requires lots of adjusting to get things working right again. I would hate to have an AD problem and our users not be able to access the file server. With a stand alone server we currently use Retrospect Server and we could just back up each machine's home folder so we wouldn't necessarily need networked home folders. Users do not save documents to their home folders. All documents are shared in a central location.
I am looking for suggestions and advice about which seems the better way to go for our situation, or if I am completely misunderstanding something please let me know. Each user has their own computer so I don't need to worry about multiple users per computer. Also, we can always put aliases to the folders they use the most in the sidebar to get the server to mount easily.
Thanks for any help.
Lianne