Setting up my server.

[Hampden Comp]

Hi all, So much great info on here, thanks to everyone! I just picked up a a Dell T310 Xeon Quad 2.4, 8gb ram with 2x500gb cabled sata drives with 2008 r2. My initial goals are to host WSUS and set up a pxe iso boot to organize and stream line that repetitious process. The next step would be to set it up for an online offisite backups from a Synology 412+ that I have running as a file server for a sign company. Having MSDN I can install Server 2012 and start with that also. Would you use 2008r2 or 2012? I was thinking of setting up the host and then a hyper v guest to to do my patch and installs and install 2x3g WD red drives in raid 1 to host the data for the back ups. I am a desktop guy trying to maximize the time I have at the shop and familiarize myself with windows servers. Thanks for any advice, I hate to reinvent the wheel, if someone has something similar that works or advice as to how to get where I want to go with as little trial and error, I am all ears!

 

[angry_geek]

You're going to have a hard time getting that machine to do any heavy lifting. It will run hyper-v with one light vm, but your storage array is going to gimp you quite a bit. Don't mess with server 2012. It's a mess. What ever you do, do NOT install SBS on that config. For pxe and nas duties, it should be ok. First thing I would do is double your memory. 16 GB of DDR 3 ecc can be had for less than $100. Stick with 8 GB sticks so you can add more later, and Dell loves Kingston and Crucial.