WHS vs Windows Server 2008

[kevine]

OK. I know that I will get a bunch of people itching to open this thread and say "Why spend the money on Server 2008?". Because it's FREE. I have a licensed copy of Windows Server 2008 Enterprise. I have made the decision to move from Vista to a server OS. I would like your opinions on whether you would spend the money on WHS or use the free Server 2008 Enterprise.

[Skirge01]

Depending on how quickly I write this, I'll be the first to jump in here and say that I would personally stick with WHS. I don't currently have a need for all the corporate bells-and-whistles that are included with a full-blown version of Server. For instance, I don't want/need to mess with Active Directory in a home environment. Talk about overkill. Besides, there are so many things to tinker with that I don't know if I'd be able to leave well enough alone. I enjoy the fact that I set up WHS the first time and barely have to mess with it. Since setting it up, the most "intensive" change I made to the OS itself was to turn on jumbo frames, since it wouldn't allow me to do that remotely.

For me, I absolutely love the simplicity of WHS. I deal with enterprise software all day at work. I don't want to deal with it at home, as well.

[kevine]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

For me, I absolutely love the simplicity of WHS. I deal with enterprise software all day at work. I don't want to deal with it at home, as well.

You are the type of person I was hoping to hear from. Someone that has worked with both. Thanks.

[gplasky]

WHS was designed as a home media server. You'll lose the "bells and whistles" of WHS if you go with Server 2008. The automatuc backing up and complete restore of all of your home PCs. Ease of adminstration (do everything thru WHS Console), ease of setting up remote access and a Web Server Home page and more. If you don't mind losing those features then it is probably a toss up. Server 2008 will use Vista drivers for your hardware where WHS will use either Server 2003 drivers (if they are out there) or Windows XP drivers for the most part. Both can give you fits from a driver perspective especially if you go Server 2008 64 bit. Higher default security on Server 2008 can also make it difficult to get to the Internet for various plugins. For me WHS just had the better feature set and less complications than dealing with Server 2008. And just like Skirge01 I deal with MS Enterprise at work all day. Looking for less work when I get home.

Gerry

[valnar]

I'd pick Windows 2003 Server over both choices.

[Motofreak75]

I run Windows 2008 std edition, because I got a few copies free. But since you have Windows Server 2008 Enterprise. Just sell it man, its just so overkill from Sagetv uses for the home use.

I found that "yes" you have spend just a few minutes extra to install the BDA drivers and you must use Signed x64 drivers ( there is a great work around that) for all the hardware. overall its so dam stable running sagetv on Win2k8 x64 , I have setup and use WHS but for network performance alone 2008 is the way to go. Or if your looking for the same network performance, just switch over to the other side and pick your flavor of Linux.

The only reasons I'm running Win2k8 is that my needs for small home office requires Sage & Hyper-v using SBS 2k8 server VM and a few windows & linux vm's And using just one big server is a lot cheaper on electricity & hardware costs.

Also because of the Java 32bit 4gig memory limitations running in x64 environment you will not see any improvements running more than 4gigs for the Sage app.

So if you have a lot of extenders or your server dishes out a lot of network traffic, EBay that Enterprise Lic and and you can buy a one standard lic because the only time I shut down the sage service is it's upgrade time, most times Its a month or so without turning off sagetv server. and thats all I ask of my sagetv is to be reliably.

[Skirge01]

Gerry brought up the other features of WHS which, IMHO, are simply a perfect match for a media server. It's an all-in-one solution. I may call my WHS box a "media server", but it definitely does everything else, including backing up all my PC's.

A couple of people have mentioned the stability of Server 2003 or 2008 over WHS. My WHS box is solid as a rock and the only time I've rebooted is when I've upgraded or installed something that required it. I'd also like to point out that there's a reason why WHS is so stable: WHS was built on Server 2003 and even says so when you watch it boot up. You just get a fairly simple, end-user interface to Server 2003 with many features designed specifically for a home server. I'm not a big fan of MS software, but they did a really good job on WHS.

[kevine]

Thank you all for your suggestions. I have successfully converted over to WHS. Now to figure out how to get more $130 1.5 TB drives to replace 500 GB one at a time.