djones

This will be a file server. I was thinking about a fixed 50Gb VHD for the OS and another dynamic VHD for the DATA. Any thoughts?

Bum! It has just started working! I hate computer! Thanks anyway!

Thanks. I had forgotten that one but it hasn't made a difference. Yellow exclamation mark on the tray icon, windows update fails to connect, etc

Is it possible, sensible (or what is 'best' practice) to connect two virtual discs to one virtual machine in Hyper-V? I was just about to begin setting up and began thinking about OS/data separation. How should this idealing work/be setup?

Just installing a 2008 R2 server into a 2003 domain (although not yet at the stage of adding to domain) and can't get internet access. Access to network shares works fine. Any ideas?

What about if I plan to use BackupExec 2010 to backup the VMs? Would this be best installed and run on the host rather than individual VMs? Would I then be 'forced' down the full 2008 R2 install rather than Hyper-V server?

4gig! Wow, really?! I've planned for 2gb for a full host install!

I am about to build a new server to replace a lone DC/File server. Initial thoughts are to build and join as member, promote to DC, transfer all roles and move shares setting up DFS in the process. Run the existing DC alongside until the Summer and then demote and remove from domain. This can then be rebuilt and reused (not sure if it will run R2 or not yet - haven't looked). What do you think? Secondly, as this will be my first production 2008 R2 install, any 'must do' settings/steps that you have decided upon or found out the hard way? Thanks, Dave

Just about to build a new server to replace an existing lone, does everything server. I plan to use Hyper-V as host but not sure whether to use the Hyper-V server or full blown 2008 R2 with Hyper-V. Any suggestions? Dave

Cbeebies?

We're a large-ish primary and are setup something like this: Reception: Automatic logon using a single class account and password (year09/year09); Year 1: Auto logon for the first term using a single class account and password (year08/year08); Year 2: Single class account and password (year07/year07) moving to individual usernames and passwords for more able as appropriate during the year. This takes the form of 'year of entry+initials' (e.g. 06ABC) and their 6 digit date of birth (e.g 010203); Year 3-6: Individual usernames and passwords as above; ('yearXX' relates to the year the children started in Reception) All accounts use redirected 'My Documents' with staff having access to the root of the share for children's folders (Pupil's My Documents > KS2> 2007 > 07CBA > My Documents). This area is for children to save anything personal e.g. not connected with class, directed learning. There is a central shared area available ('Pupil's Learning') that has folders for each academic year (e.g. '2009-2010') which contains year group folders (e.g. 'Reception', 'Year 1-2', 'Year 3-4' and 'Year 5-6'). Within these, are folders for specific learning units regardless of subject (e.g. 'Non-chronological Reports' or 'Databases', etc). Children are taught to save all learning into the appropriate folders here with an appropriate file name (which will usually include their first name too). This allows teachers to select entire units of learning for offline viewing (we make quite heavy use of 'Offline Files' on teacher's laptops) or as evidence for whatever without having to trawl through individual folders. Within the 'Pupil's Learning' folder, there is also another folder ('Learning Resources') which has read only access for child accounts where staff place templates or other resources for specific learning units. Staff accounts take the form of 'first initial+surname' and they are forced to change passwords every 120 days (roughly once a term). Passwords must be at least 6 characters long and be alphanumeric. Dave

not for CAT5/6!

K2 works great although needs quite a bit of tweaking in terms of templates to make it display as you want and many extensions are not compatible as yet. Out-of-the-box it allows finer control of categories, etc that people are allowed to publish in. I have just used it for the first time on a new site for my school which allows every member of staff to add content but only in their designated areas depending on what groups they belong to. It also makes adding images, video, attachments, comments, etc very easy for the lay-(non-techie)-person. It has gone down very well so far...

So does that mean if I use Hyper-V Server running virtual 2008 R2 servers and want to use removable USB HDDs to create and store backups from within the 2008 guests, I can't?

3g SAS discs to save cost over 6g? Again, is the bandwith increase likely to convert to noticeable end user difference?

I'd rather not pay anything more just to get hyper-threading if I'm unlikely to see a significant benefit and the same is true for simply increasing the speed. The cache I could see as having a greater difference, I'm just not sure it is worth it when trying to come in on budget. :-(

1. HP or Dell? Pretty settled on spec but which brand - have only really used Dell servers in the past but the HPs are looking good on paper. 2. HT CPUs or not - will I see a noticeable benefit going for a, say, E5520 with HT over a non-HT E5504? £100 difference?

Wow...wow...wow!

http://www2.smarttech.com/kbdoc/144376

By that, do you mean the addons like sql, and exchange etc?

Can anyone recommend backup software for me please? We currently use BackupExec v9. I'm planning a new server install (2008 R2 running on Hyper-V, probably) and want to overhaul the backup system. I can upgrade BE or go with something else. Cheers, Dave EDIT: Should mention that I'd like to move away from using tapes and envisage backing up to a NAS in another building in addition to using removeable HDDs for the offsite element so software would need to be able to handle this.

Next question - redundant PSU or not? Was thinking 'yes' and now thinking that with 3Y NBD this wouldn't be so much of a problem. Opinions?

Incidently, I thought the RAID controller did this automatically when you inserted the new drive? Or am I misunderstanding what you are saying?

Ok, thanks for that. Unfortunately, I think going for RAID10 will blow the budget as I'd have to up the number or capacity of drives (and therefore cost) considerably to achieve the same overall storage. Restore time versus financial cost...the latter wins again!

Am I wrong then in my understanding of RAID5? I thought RAID5 would mean that you get the benefit of performance, capacity and protection in that if one drive fails the array would continue to operate at the expense of performance. A new drive could be swapped in and the array would rebuild itself restoring performance when complete. No data would be lost except if a second drive failed at the same time. This is what I have always thought so if I'm wrong, it is a damn good job I've not had many drive failures to date!