Problem Help on first home server/network

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Hello guys. I'm about to setup my first home server and have a network of pc's.
I have my main pc which i will keep seperate buy my server is a Dual Core Athlon X4200.
Now i want this to be a Windows Server but do i start with Windows Server 2003 or do i jump straight in with Server 2008?
I have legit copies of both OS's but unsure of which one to use. Would i benefit from starting with Server 2003 and in time progressing to 2008 once i have learned the basics etc and get comfy with 2003?

Also got a SFF machine which i plan to use as a hardware firewall. Its a P4 2.4Ghz with 512mb ram. Will this be enough or could i just run ipcop or another firewall software in a VM on my Windows Server?

The server's main purpose is just for testing as i want to teach myself networking and servers etc.

Any advice would be MUCH appreciated.

Thanks

 

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You could easily use both (via vmware), but if you only want to use one at a time then start with 2003, that way you gain functionality when you move to 2008

 

2003 and 2008 are both still widely used so either / or will be good. If it was me I would install 2008 with the hyper v role and then run other servers as VM's. Nothing wrong with using your other box as a firewall but if you virtualise it then you might want to use vmware as hyper v doesnt seem to play that nicely with some linux based distros yet.

In my home lab I have my whitebox (AMD 6 core, 12 gigs ram etc) with server 2008 running hyper v. Main VM is SBS 2011 but also have Windows 7, couple of XP, SQL 2005 and a few other things. I find my main bottleneck to be hard disk related as the drives are just standard consumer stuff so try and get the fastest drive you can if you are going to be virtualising stuff.

Hope that helps.

 

Hmm 2 replies and one says 2003 and the other 2008. Want to get started today and for some reason I'm wanting to use 2003 but also feel that 2008 may win me over as it's newer! Help!

 

i'd use 2008 without a doubt

 

install 2008, learn loads about that. I think you can work out how to do the same thing (if its supported) on 2003 after if needed. 2008 is more complex, more roles but id start there.
You can get a trial 2008 server straight from m$ site that reactivates a few times and will give you months of use. I think it was 90 days and can be re-activated a 3 times?
I setup my mini lab in house with a trial version last November which still works ok.

 

Windows Server 2008 installing now
Will update you all later tonight when its installed with VMWare etc and hopfully a firewall of some sort vm'd

Cheers all