servers

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I'm looking at setting up a server at home, both for use and to learn on. What i'd like to know is, where do i start? Shall i use SBS, W2K3 or W2k8? I do plan to use it as a web server and file server, not really looking to exchange for practical use juts maybe to learn, and not sure if i want a DC (probably will). So which should o start with?

The other thing is, we use Linux servers at work, and i missed out on an opertunity to do some work on one as i wasnt showing teh spark of excitment over it. Problem is, if i set one of these up at home to learn from, i know i probably wouldnt put much into is. If i dont see a practicle use (so if i had windows servers i wouldnt need linux) for me to get something out of it at home. i find it hard to pick up. So would i be wrong to stick to this and just learn Win servers or should i also start a linux one at the same time? I think its best just to do one, plus i dont have enough PCs to run 2 so would have to dual boot but that would then cause issues with usage on other pcs surley?

 

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Personally I would look at either 2003 or 2008, my own preference was 2008 R2 server. As far as SBS goes, that's going to be a more niche market, infact I haven't come across it in my professional career at all... ever, take from that what you like but I haven't had to bone up on that yet.

I recently purchased 4 new Lenovo TS200's (I got them at 60% discount so instead of £600 I got them at £250 +vat). It may be worth having a look to see what kind of deals are going on atm.

I haven't bothered learning about *nix servers (actually a small lie as I am learning about Openfiler\Freenas and vSphere) because it's not really been something I needed to learn about.

 

Thanks for the thoughts. I'm not planning on buying new hardware (cant afford too) so was looing at using an older AMD Athlon X2 4200 on a ASUS AN8 SLI with 4Gb ram 1Tb HDD. Would this suffice?

I thoughtthat for ESX you needed a BIOS that could enable virtulisation? this i wont have on the Athlon setup as far as i know.

When installing a Windows server at home will i need any other considerations? From what i've seen, it asks you what you want to use it for and installs the nessercery compnents for you to configure after. I know i'll have to turn off DHCP on the router if i want the server to be a DC. What about AD? how easy is that to setup with 2 XP and 1 Win7 pc?

As you can tell i'm a true beginner when it comes to servers. Never needed to touch any, probably still dont, but do want to improve my skills. And i'm looking to do this after i've sat the 70.272 then persue a Server qual.

 

If your BIOS doesn't support Virtualisation then you're possibly going to have the same issue with other virtualisation products (which will have the same requirements).

 

Well it seems a little moot at the moment now. Went to power up the spare pc to start installing a CentOS system for testing while i wait to decide on a server OS, and i got 1 long beep 3 short ones. Memory error code. So replace memory with spare stick from a dead pc that i know died due to PCI-e slot failure. And get teh same error codes. So seems liek this mobo is knacked. Thats 2 pcs i had spare both with fekked Mobos. Bad timming or what?
As thier both Asus socket 939 boards i cant seem to find a cheap replacement on fleabay. So now my server will have to wait even longer.