Server options

[Morne]

And you need that for small amount of users? Why?
I'm asking because maybe I also need that and don't even know it

[Donald2B]

It also allows for better communication between computers on your network...so computer name resolution works a LOT better. You can also setup startup scripts that run when a user logs into a computer and can prep various features.

[Morne]

Yes I understand all this. I use to be a system administrator and also an IT manager for about 60 users back in the day when NT4 was king. I never thought of deploying a domain in a small scenario like 10 or less. This thread however is making me rethink my IT strategy.

[Donald2B]

Ah, so you get it. (NT was awesome!)

We are about 30ish people and we are not on a domain. I would prefer to be so it would be easier to manage the render farm and have a more centralized approach.

[ior=0]

So am I right in thinking that you could set up a win7 VM on a capable NAS (QNAPTS453) then get it to run backburner manager, host the Vray dongle and the V-RAY license server. All this whilst acting as your file server?

Only asking as my current win7pro file/license server/dongle host, is an old quad-core Opteron(280) with a High-point RAID (10). BUT this can't be upgraded to Win10. Old Opterons are missing an instruction set or something not supported.

This is a solid machine (supermicro) but is probably starting to show it's age and I'm looking at alternatives.

I'm guessing it'd also be possible to keep the win7 server and the nodes/workstations as win10, is that likely to cause any problems on win10?