NT4.0 installation on a 120mhz machine

[namit23]

I have a 120mhz Compaq Proliant1500. Will windows NT4.0 run efficiently on it. It is going to be used to connect 14 computers in the LAN.

 

[owensdj]

namit23, I've got a 120MHz Pentium machine that I built from old components that runs NT 4.0 Workstation. It seems to work pretty well. The most important thing is to have enough memory. A 120MHz Pentium machine with 64MB or more of memory would make an acceptable server for a small numbers of client computers in a situation where high performance file serving wasn't needed.

 

[namit23]

Well it has 64mb ram, but I wanna run win nt server on that. Currently it has Novell Netware but it makes me sick and its capabilities are limited. So like will it run perfectly.

 

[CTR]

Why does Netware make you sick? Is it an old version? What do you mean by limited? Remember that if you change your server OS, you will need to worry about license fees for the clients.

 

[namit23]

I forgot to tell you, I am talking about the Procter & Gamble office. We have unlimited user license for all these products. And I have Snap5 it is actually Novell5 with some additional features, specially made for P&G.
But I just dont like it. I wanna change it to NT

 

[CTR]

If this server is participating in your NDS replica ring, make sure you remove it correctly before you decommission the server.

 

[namit23]

Ya I will do all that, I have to remove it from the P&G NDS tree and stuff, we also have a VSAT connection which I will have to disable. But will NT run efficiently on it. All the other workstations are windows 98.

 

[CTR]

What exactly will it be doing? File and print services? It will suck compared to NW5 in those areas, especially with 64MB of RAM. If you are looking to use it as an app server it might work a little better.

Will it participate in a big domain? Will it be a BDC so you can login locally instead of across the WAN? If so, it will be pretty slow. Needs more RAM.

I don't want to insult you or anything, but if your tree was setup correctly (don't span the WAN for partitions), you will end up having to remove the entire partition that your location occupies. You don't want to see any unplanned subordinate references all, right? And before you do that you have to go remove all the replicas of your partition on every server that has a copy. Do you have rights to do this and is everyone aware that you are going to do this? Also make sure that everything is synchronized correctly before you attempt this operation or you could really hose the NDS.

 

[inquis]

everything really just depends on what the server is going to be doing. If you are just going to be sharing files and printers, I would install debain before I would install NT. Especially on an old machine like that, the reduced overhead would give you a significant gain in performance. Reguardless of what OS, upgrade the RAM to 128 if you possibly can.

I still love running win2k on my 8 way pentium pro 2M cache box, though 😀

/me likes going to work now 😉

-inq

 

[namit23]

Thanx for the info all you guys. Its actually going to serve as a file and print server but I wanted to try stunts on it by setting up the NNTP and IIS services and like I wanted to do a few more things. But I guess I shoould stick with novell cause if I screw up than I get a hard kick.
Thanx for all the help.

 

[StuckMojo]

one thing NT does do halfway well is memory management. on the desktop, it may be a bit sluggish, but should run fine with 64M...but of course more would be better. however, with no one logged in, just using it as a file/print/etc server, it should be plenty snappy if your talking low client load (15 you said, right?)...just make sure you have a nice big swap file allocated (like 128M just in case) so it doesnt have to go enlarging the swap file if it needs it.

as far as NSD goes, im clueless on that one, so maybe you should bow to the superior knowledge of the previous posts 😛