Hi guys

I need some expert advise regarding best solutions / practices for small office file management.

There are a number of issues I would like to solve:

• Central file location
• File version control
• User privileges
• Central PHP web development
• Cloud file backup

A little background on my current situation:

I work in a team of 8 people in a web development company - some team members are using Macs others PCs. Some of us also have laptops. Currently I have a Windows 7 Professional machine setup as a SAMBA file share with 2 users: management  & development. The management user login is used by only 2 users and they have access to specific shares which the development users cannot view/edit. Currently we have Crashplan backing up the shares to the cloud. Our current solution has the following problems:

1. Multiple users using the development login causes constant connection time-outs throughout the day
2. There is no support for version control on PHP files for client projects
3. No central PHP development server / no PHP debugging support

My initial thought was to setup a LAMP stack appliance and move all our files onto that where I would be able to then setup version control, however I don't know if it is best to have a LAMP stack appliance working as a file server although as a concept it makes sense to do so.

I am also looking for suggestions for the version control solutions that could work with both Mac / PC platforms.

From a backup perspective my current Crashplan setup could backup the virtual machine LAMP stack however that would not allow individual file access - I found this article:

http://nerdwa.com/index.php/2011/05/crashplan-on-ubuntu-server/

which explains how to get Crashplan to work in a headless ubuntu environment - I presume this could also be a solution that could be implemented on the LAMP stack appliance.

Looking forward to your thoughts and feedback.

cheers

nick