Partition of Server OS HD

[hongkongdonkey]

I have an old P4 (no HDs) that I plan on using as a home server. I had planned on installing Server 2003 on a HD but was thinking of getting a larger HD and partitioning it and perhaps installing a couple of other OSs to try out. Is this possible or should I just get a smaller HD and stick to 2003.

Cheers.

[jameson_uk]

Originally Posted by hongkongdonkey

I had planned on installing Server 2003 on a HD

Do you already have a copy of Server 2003? This is possibly a bit overkill for a home server (but if you have a spare license lying around then it will work).

perhaps installing a couple of other OSs to try out. Is this possible or should I just get a smaller HD and stick to 2003.

Yes this will work. Some MS OS are a little funny in the order you install them to ensure they dual (or more) boot.

[hongkongdonkey]

Thanks for the reply. The reason for using server 2003 is because I happen to have a spare licence. I'm presuming that I'd be better to install any MS software first and put linux on later.

[EndlessWaves]

If you check the prices I think you'll find it doesn't make much sense to get less than 250-320GB, lower capacities simply aren't any cheaper to make.

I don't know about 2003 but I think Vista and later are pretty good about living with other OSs and don't behave any worse than the likes of Ubuntu.

[hongkongdonkey]

I had a quick look around and found

320 GB = £33
400 GB = £37
500 GB = £40

Reckon I'll go for the 500GB which will give me plenty of room to mess around with various systems. What size should I make partitions? As its a server I can't see me having any more than squeezebox and maybe a tv tuner later on.

[dazza786]

Out of interest, why are you planning on installing 2003?

Surely if it's just to mess about with it, you can install a base OS and then run different types of servers through VirtualBox\VMware and the likes?
Then if you're trying to learn, you can see if you can get samba set up between a linux distro and Server 2003

[hongkongdonkey]

It turns out it was Server 2008 I had. The reason I am using this is purely because I have a license for it and I reckoned I could get it up and running quicker than Linux. It was starightforward to partition and install, just had to find some vista based drivers for the network adaptor on the old board.