my small office network (Score 1)

I currnetly manage on the side my fathers law firm's network and computers, they currently have 10 computers and one computer acting as a server computer. it sounds like I have something similar to what you are looking to do. the key is simplicity, first thing, don't mess woth a domain, unless you require the security, don't do it.It will only cause you numerous headaches, i know because i currently work for another company with the same number of computers and they are constantly having issues with the domain not functioning. it is also much more complicated to add a computer to the network. we have all the drops in the office go back to one centeral place in a file room. the drops all end at a patch pannel for ease of connectivity. we run a basic dsl modem hooked to a router and then a 24 port switch hooked to it. here is how i set up the server for both simplicity and some security. it is a dell 420sc running windows xp, I have 2 hard drives in it that are mirroring, and also have a external drive that I can copy files to, it also has a cd burner for offsite backups. if you disable easy file sharing in windows xp you can create enough security for your needs. Make sure to run some sort of antivirus on all your computers and server.I am running pands antivirus on all the computers and server, it has been much better, and lower maintence then any other antivirus, in the past have used both macaffee and norton. can also be bought from buycheapsoftware.com for $17 per license. the only downside to the whole setup is that i have to manually backup files to the external hard drive and cd burner. if someone knows of an easy way to automate this please let me know. there are a few printers that I have shared, but are hooked to a computer, the key to it all is simplicity, simple is always better then complex when you are starting, you can always add a more complex system when you feel more compfortable.
Total cost of all the networking hardware, and the server was right around 1500 including windos xp pro software.