[Lancaster] file server with backups - advice wanted

[andy baxter]

Hi all,

The boss at the place I'm working has asked me to look into setting up a 
linux based file server for them, with a proper backup schedule. There 
are a bit over half a dozen employees at the moment, but this may 
increase in the future.

I haven't done anything like this before, so if anyone can answer any of 
the following questions, it would be a big help:
 - Most of the machines use windows, so I'll be using samba. How well 
does this work in practice with a network of windows machines?
 - Any advice on what hardware specs would be good for a proper server 
machine? In particular, is it necessary to use (hardware or software) RAID?
 - Does anyone know any (ideally local) companies that provide off site 
backup services which will work with linux? We don't need anything that 
complex - a linux file server with ssh / sftp would be enough I think.
 - What's a good backup tool to use? It should be able to deal with the 
off site backup service we are using.

The data to be backed up will be a mixture of office documents (on the 
samba server), and code (in a subversion repository).

thanks,

andy