We are looking to purchase 2 new servers to replace the existing ones we have. Our company has about 18 client computers running XP Pro and Win 7 Pro. I want to setup server 1 as primary DNS, AD-DS, and Domain Controller. Server 2 is going to be secondary DNS, replicate AD-DS, etc.. basically a fail-over system. When the client logs onto the domain, I want their home directory hosted from the DroboShare. I also want multiple shares for each department for sharing files within their group (eg. Engineering, Sales, etc). Would a Xenon 2.53Ghz, 12M cache, 8GB RDIMM memory be sufficient for processing power? Would a DroboPro be able to handle 18 concurrent users having their home directory mapped? Or would it be more beneficial to have their home directory local instead? Is there a way to prevent saving files locally then? The reason for this is by having all the files on the DroboPro, there's only one medium that needs to be backed up on a regular basis. BTW, The DroboPro would be connected via iSCSI to a switch instead of directly to the server.

For the services you mention, both servers are well equipped. it do not know DroboPro, but from what I can see on the products page, it's performance should meet your requirements. However, file server (or NAS/SAN) performance always is heavily dependent on the usage. If 18 users would be concurrently downloading multiple GB files all day long, I assume this storage box will run out of breath (appear slow). However, normal file access patterns are not likely to hit performance that hard. If you are stuck in capacity plannign, Microsoft offers multiple tools to assist you making the right decisions. Most of them are listed and explained here. Documentation on the plannign and design of new environments is available here MCSA/MCTS/MCP