I'm setting up a home server and have just been offered windows server 2003 r2 for £40.

Is it worth it and is it overkill for a home media storage server?

Also, can it be administered through a web interface, I don't want to dedicate a monitor to it and I'm not a fan of KVM switches (or at least KVM switches that i can afford)

Opinions and alternative suggestions welcome.

Thanks

Yes, I would say it was overkill put for £40 you cant really go wrong can you?

And I do believe you can use a web interface to run it....but I have no experience of it so I shall shut up now....now.

Hobgob..now.

You can just rdp into it - do that all the time for the works servers as they have no monitors attached to them.

does it have a lights out card ?

Of course, didn't think about that.


Excuse my ignorance, but isn't that just another type of KVM switch?

It goes beyond KVM as it allows you to remotely restart the sever itself.

Specifically, it has it's own network interface and internal web server.

You browse to it, and it's like actually being at the machine. You can get into the bios, restart and even switch it on if it's been powered down.

I use it on one of our remote HP servers which has it integrated. Unfortunately, some features are licensed. However, combined with RDC or Logmein I can do everything remotely except change hardware.

Sounds impressive - what kind of money are we talking for those?

They are, but the last time I saw one in a server spec with a separate price, I went ouch !

He says the win2k3 is a single CAL copy.
Does this mean I can only access the server from one client machine?
Can I just setup a user account and share it between the laptops in my house?
And, does that mean only one person can access the server at a time?

Apologies, I don't understand the server licencing on these things - it sounds restrictive, perhaps a spare copy of xp pro would be better.

Depends if it's a user or device cal.
You should have a cal for every user or device that will access the server at the same time.

Windows home server is based on the same tech & comes with 10 cals

It is complete overkill for a home server but it will do the job. IIRC server 2k3 came with a minimum of 5 CAL licence, in reality, unless you are planning to expand your network considerably you want have any issues.

If you only want to create a file share etc and aren't planning on doing anything fancy on the network that would need a domain controller then I would just stick xp on it if you have a spare licence. or even think about a linux distro... not my speciality but I'm sure someone on here could suggest the perfect distro for home server needs.

I'm not looking to do anything special. The server will be for storing pics and docs, plus the odd bit of audio/video streaming.
As I understand it, win2k3 has a dedicated front end for a streaming server.

That is why I'm tempted to go for it rather than use xp.

I won't see him until Wednesday, and I wanted to run the idea past you chaps so I'd have some intelligent questions to ask.

2k3 isn't the best for streaming. for example, you can't install WMP.

MS took the decision that 2k3 was a server and didn't need any multimedia crap. if you want that you install media centre etc.

Its possible to have it streaming, but not natively. I use it to stream to my network using [urlhttp://ps3mediaserver.blogspot.com/]PS3MediaServer[/url]

I think for your needs, you'd be better off with XP or some kind of low footprint linux distro that does the business.

Hmm, I might just stick with my spare xp pro - I'll think it over some more.

It sounds like a bargain for £40 though.