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Vista or Server 2k3 for file storage?

K

kyzen

Golden Member
My primary desktop and laptop are both sporting Vista Ultimate. I have a file storage machine that I've been meaning to reformat for quite awhile now, and need to decide what OS to put on it: Vista Business, Vista Ultimate, or Server 2003.

Being able to remote desktop into it is important, and beyond that, it's mainly used to stream MP3s and videos to my various machines (and will one day feed a media center box).

Probably worth mentioning that I also have an Xbox 360 I wouldn't mind having movies streamed to as well.

Are there any benefits Vista will offer over Server 2003? And is it worth wasting an Ultimate license on, or would Business suffice?
 
Maybe you should try Ubuntu on it? If not, then just use the cheapest OS you can find. It's really not going to matter that much if it's just a file storage machine. Though MS may have you in a chokehold if you want to stream to your Xbox 360. You might need Vista for that, I'm not sure.

As an afterthought: Put Linux on the file storage server then put XP Media Center on the media center. That way you can stream to your Xbox and also avoid needless expensive licenses. What would you gain by using Vista over XP on the media center?
 
Wow, paying for Win2K3 Server for home use is pretty insane IMO. If all you're using it for is sharing files via SMB then you payed way too much for a lot of stuff that you're not using.
 
I believe Vista has a new feature where if the PC you connected from and to are BOTH Vista, and you perform search, then the search will automatically use the INDEXING feature to speed up the search.

According to this: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/footnotes.mspx

Vista Business does not have MCE and will not support MC Extender or XBOX 360. This requires Home Premium or Ultimate. The Home Premium doesn't support RD into another PC, but you can use Ultimate and RD to it.
 
I have an MSDN subscription provided by my employer and get x amount of licenses for each product. So cost of the OS isn't a concern 🙂
 
It's too early to say for sure, and generalizations always break, but some of Vista's changes give performance improvements, potentially even over W2K3. This can of course get shot down with immature drivers or even MS changes down the road, but there is, IME, in general some advantage to using the newer code base in Vista for such tasks. There should be a further advantage in going Vista to Vista, using SMB 2.0.

OTOH, if W2K3 is already transferring at around drive speed, or you're hitting other bottlenecks such as 100 Mb/s networking, then there may be no material difference.

Longhorn server could be interesting from this point of view.
 
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