You will never be able to achieve the same performance across
your network as you do locally. It might be close enough to be
acceptable but it will never be as fast. As for your new server, it
sounds like a very good step up for a file server. But keep in mind
if your network switch/router is only 10/100 having gigabit cards
at either end will not help. You're bottleneck will now be the
switch/router.
As for people pulling the same files and working on them, you need
to have some process in place that would stop that. Obviously PDM
would be the ideal solution but as far as alternatives go there are
numerous ones. This particular topic has been covered several times
on
Eng-Tips.com.
You might want to pop on over there and do a search for some
answers. In the end you'll have to come up with something that work
for you and your users.
You will never be able to achieve the same performance across your network as you do locally. It might be close enough to be acceptable but it will never be as fast. As for your new server, it sounds like a very good step up for a file server. But keep in mind if your network switch/router is only 10/100 having gigabit cards at either end will not help. You're bottleneck will now be the switch/router.