Server for doing MCSA exams

elrasho

elrasho

elrasho

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I'm looking to either buy or build a server so I can do the MCSA exams. It has to be able to cope with various domain controllers. I'll be using VMware Workstation running multiple virtual machines, the idea is to setup a domain controller, hosts, file server etc.

My budget is around £250, I know it's not much and I don't mind going second hand.

Edit: will this do the job DELL PowerEdge T110 II Tower Server
 
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If your desktop PC is powerful enough you could just buy an SSD for it to host the VM Disks and then use your system RAM/CPU power to run the VM's as well. That's what I do here when I want to test running some VM's for MS Exams.

Sure a server will do the trick as well but you have to keep it somewhere and they can be powerful/noisy!

What I tend to do is create a template VM, and then sysprep/shut it down. Once that's done I just clone it and it completes the sysprep process during boot.
 
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I was thinking that but my main rig is for gaming really. I don't need a GTX680 to do the MCSA prep. Also I have just 8GB RAM, might just buy another 8GB stick it in and take it from there. Why do I need to use SSD? I take it each VM I make will only be 5GB max right?
 
Sure my main rig is for gaming too but the great thing about VM's is that you can boot them up/pause them/shut them down whenever you want, I don't tend to be gaming at the same time as doing lab work and vice versa.

The main reason you want an SSD is that you will get really good IOPS for running your VM's on. I used to run VM's on my storage drives (2TB 5400RPM) and they were dog slow to boot and use.

I then upgraded my SSD and moved the VM's to my old one, and they just work much faster from there.

There is some element of thin provisioning as well depending upon what you are installing. You can assign a 40-50GB disk to a VM but it will only consume the utilised space on the disk, so you can over provision your VM's a little quite safely.

A VM would only consume 5GB if you run an older OS on it, later ones like Server 2008 R2 will consume more space without any extras installed. My Server 2012 Template VM is 18GB big :)

Having a bit more RAM would be a good idea, I had 12GB on my old PC and 16GB on my new one which are both fine. I also recommend a decent quad core processor as you want to give each VM at least one, maybe two vCPU's to use.

Really your requirements depend on how often you want to use these VM's and how many you want to run. My setup on my main PC is just fine for the times when I want to run some VM's for testing Exchange/AD, and I can safely run around 5-6 VM's like this (not really tried running more than that at once).
 
Think I'll look for a second hand one off the bay or something, I've seen some decent xenon quad cores go for £150. Just don't feel comfortable using my gaming rig for experimenting on.
 
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A £150 Xeon server is going to be a lot hotter, slower and louder than your i5 system. I would do (and in fact, have done) as Eulogy suggests, and spend the money on an additional SSD and more memory for your existing system. 16GB RAM and a 256GB SSD would be ideal for the sort of labs you'd be doing for MCSA certifications.
 
Sorry to hijack slightly (its related) but what are people using for home labs these days software wise now TechNet is done with? Trial versions?
 
Xinn said:
Sorry to hijack slightly (its related) but what are people using for home labs these days software wise now TechNet is done with? Trial versions?
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Yup, I have started using evaluation versions. You can still obtain evaluations of Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 from TechNet. The download links are located here. If you find that the evaluation period for Windows isn't long enough, you can reset it by running "slmgr.vbs –rearm" from an administrative command prompt. I think that gets you an extra 180 days for Server 2008 R2 and an extra 90 days for Windows 7, which should be enough even for exams like 70-640.
 
even though large proportion still use 7
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you answered your own question right there. you will find a lot of business still use windows xp as well, you going to ignore that as well, that is a lot of questions pcs you cannot repair,
 
well I would always go the latest version you can, because there will be enough similarities between that and the previous one that you can get by on either. Best to get qualified in something that will last longer.
 
elrasho said:
Shouldn't people be doing the Windows 8 exam instead of 7 now? I'm going straight to 8 even though large proportion still use 7
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Windows 7 is supported by Microsoft until at least 2020, and with most businesses seemingly wanting to avoid Windows 8, I think it's reasonable to assume that Windows 7 will replace XP as the long term OS of choice. The place I work at has just started migrating from Windows XP and Office 2007 to Windows 7 and Office 2010. I strongly doubt we'll go through another migration until Microsoft drop support for Windows 7.

Eulogy said:
well I would always go the latest version you can, because there will be enough similarities between that and the previous one that you can get by on either. Best to get qualified in something that will last longer.
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I think this is probably your safest bet, unless of course you have a compelling enough reason to certify on the previous versions. If you work somewhere that uses Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7, and has no plans to change that any time soon, then you're probably better off certifying on those. If you're new to IT or are changing jobs, then certifying on the latest software will probably be better.
 
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