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rhym1n

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Jan 15, 2014
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Let me just start by saying I am ready to move on from a help desk position and advance my career. I have Cisco CCENT and CompTIA A+ certifications, and about halfway done studying for Network+. I have basically no experience with Windows Servers and am wanting to setup a domain environment at home to learn, learn, learn.

I'm wanting to learn about VMware, AD, exchange, setting up DNS and DHCP, and any other necessary features that can be done through Windows Server. I know this won't be easy, and I will run into many issues, but I am willing to put in the time and I think this would be a great step in learning.

1) Does anyone have any recommendations on what Server version I should use (I assume 2008R2 or 2012?

2) I am going to build a new PC anyways as it's been 5 years since doing so. I will run Windows Server from my old PC (which is actually still quite fast - just needs more RAM for virtualization). Anything I might be missing hardware wise on this PC?

3) Any other recommendations of what I should learn about dealing with Windows Server?

I just want to thank you guys in advance for reading and replying!
 
Solution
As long as your motherboard / components have drivers for Windows 7 / 8, it will run Windows Server. Whether you will be able to install virtual machines, depends on your particular motherboard / CPU (generally, you need support for VT), but I think you will be OK.

These video cards are overkill for a server application, they will just make the things hotter. If the board has built-in video, use it instead.

You will need also some disk storage: Keep SSD (if any) for your desktop. Put server OS on a separate disk (and make a spare partition for future experiments). Use separate drives for your "data" (eg virtual machines' hard drives)
Go with recent / latest Windows server.

When installing, leave an empty partition where you can put future versions. Put second NIC in your server (so you can play with firewalls), and plan for additional Ethernet switch.

Put as much memory as you can - this will help you with virtualization. Check whether bare-metal hypervisors are supported by your server hardware.
 

rhym1n

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Jan 15, 2014
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10,810
Thank you for the quick reply. Would you mind telling me if these hardware specs (my old PC) will run Windows Server 2012 that will only be supporting a few devices (keep in mind I am willing to add 8GB additional RAM):

-ASUS M4A79XTD EVO AM3 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard
-AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb Quad-Core 3.4 GHz Socket AM3 125W HDZ965FBGMBOX Processor
-2 x G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL7D-4GBRM (I will put more RAM in it for virtualization)
2 x XFX Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT) HD-577A-ZNFC 1GB 128-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support ...
 
As long as your motherboard / components have drivers for Windows 7 / 8, it will run Windows Server. Whether you will be able to install virtual machines, depends on your particular motherboard / CPU (generally, you need support for VT), but I think you will be OK.

These video cards are overkill for a server application, they will just make the things hotter. If the board has built-in video, use it instead.

You will need also some disk storage: Keep SSD (if any) for your desktop. Put server OS on a separate disk (and make a spare partition for future experiments). Use separate drives for your "data" (eg virtual machines' hard drives)
 
Solution

rhym1n

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Jan 15, 2014
307
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10,810
Thanks for the info Alabalcho. I'm not sure why I even listed my video cards, because I'm not planning on using them anymore. I don't believe that mobo comes with onboard video, so I'll probably use 1 just for the hey of it. Maybe I'll buy a cheapo though for temperature planning as you said.

I do have a couple more internal HDDs and 1 external HDD, so I'm good there.