windows server home lab

zombine210

zombine210

New Member
i'm going to blow away my gaming machine and use it to set up a home lab to learn windows server stuff.
anybody else done this?

i've been watching youtube videos but i need more basic setup instructions.
so far this is the plan:

use 250GB drive to install w2k8 r2 with hyper-v
use 1Tb drive for VMs.

don't know what VMs i'm going to build but i want to simulate a real IT work environment. at work we have domain controllers, web servers, file servers, exchange servers and some other application servers like sharepoint and forefront.

does this sound like a plan?
 
My experience is with WAN side only and ftp server. Someone might ask though. Is yours for the LAN side or both? I like to play also. Its a hobby and adventure. And no, im not a authority on this subject. just have a interest and being used for what. mine was sharing family pictures and such with family mostly.
 
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not sure what you mean, but i want to set up a mock domain and internally network all the vms for a complete environment isolated from the rest of my network.
 
Don't know how to explain it. im not the authority on it.
My server was with family with passwords and user names and access to certain directories i authorized like fishing or hunting or utilities. I have 5 computers in the house all networked. Only back up or remote to help the wife on the router on the inside of the house. LAN side Local Area Network. WAN is outside the router, maybe another state. FTP works for me though.
remote works fine inside the house.
 
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Just wondering but why do you need to "blow away" your gaming rig? You don't necessarily need Hyper-v or any other virtualization server. You can just setup vmware workstation (not free) or use virtualbox (free). Inside those you can just setup your testing network any way you want.

If you really specifically want a dedicated machine for virtual machines i wouldn't go for Hyper-v. It's a nice product but it doesn't really compare to the other products (vmware and xenserver). You can play around with both, but for a simple setup i prefer xenserver. It's much easier to manage and setup. The only problem with these products is that they need to support your hardware.

About your hardware, it depends on how much vm's your wanting to run. But if you're going to run more then 8 you really need more ram. Concerning your hard disk, i wouldn't run everything from a single disk. As a rule of thumb i usually don't run more then 3 vm's of a single hard disk. The random reads/writes really becomes a huge bottleneck.
^ Assuming you use Windows server 2008 r2.
 
i'm going to blow it away because i don't use it and windows 7 takes up to 2GB ram as it is. also, i can use my system drive to load more VMs.

i found a 40GB drive laying around where i can load win2k8 & hyper-v and i'll have two 250GB to load VMs on.

i've used virtualbox in the past but i want to be familiar with solutions used in the industry. we use esx at work, but i've heard we might start using hyper-v.

also, i get free copies of windows server through school, so might as well use them. although i think i also get vmware player or workstation, can't remember.
 
Ok reasonable. With 2 x 250gb you'll be able to run a reasonable amount of vm's.

If you really want some experience with Hyper-v... well i just won't use it. There isn't much to it. Very very simple interface and nothing much to play around with. Xenserver and vmware esxi also use much less resources.
 
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