Down Sides to consumer hardware for Windows Server?

[mmaestro]

So it seems that for various reasons I need to put together a Server 2008 r2 system as a Domain controller and Hyper-V server for home. It looks like the cheapest way for me to do this would be to throw together a system using an H67 chipset and for the time being an i3 (that I'd replace with my main system's i7 when Ivy comes out). I know that Intel doesn't like us to use consumer HW for server systems, so you need to unzip/decompress the driver packages and manually install that way. Any other down sides to doing this that I should know about?

 

[ViRGE]

No, that just about covers it. The real advantage with server hardware is more rigorous testing (both of individual parts and approved configurations), and gobsmackingly good support services and warranties. As long as you don't need the domain controller for "mission-critical" purposes where you can't afford potential downtime, consumer hardware is going to be fine.

 

[yinan]

NO, dont use Hyper-V it sucks. Use ESXi and get much better performance and management.

 

[mfenn]

I've never really had an issue with installing Windows 7 drivers on Server 2008 R2 or vice versa. The two are no more different than Ubuntu and Ubuntu Server, i.e. same OS, just a different default set of packages. Anyway, yeah an i3 and H61/H67 are perfectly fine for a "just playing around" server for home.

Though I agree with yinan that you should get the free version of ESXi and virtualize your stuff that way instead of Hyper-V. ESXi 5.0 is much less picky about hardware than it used to be. It installed perfectly on my i3 2100 + H61 (cheapest MSI mini-ITX) and even has the r8168 driver for the onboard NIC!