Windows Server 2022 - what do people use it for??

StevieP · 5 Oct 2025 at 22:20

Hi I've been running unRAID now for about 8 years on a HP Microserver with the following specs:

Intel Xeon E31260L
16GB DDR3 ECC RAM

Inside I've currently got a 250gb SSD for the cache drive and 3 HDD's (2 x 4TB and 1 x 2TB WD Red's)

I use it to host Plex, store photos and videos as well as running various docker containers for game servers mostly.

Anyway, while the server has always been pretty solid I've noticed that if I have a number of docker containers installed (and not even running) then my CPU usage seems to spike from time to time and the "Docker vdisk" usage is quite high and so I am assuming that a faster CPU and more RAM will improve the performance? (happy to be told I'm wrong!)

I've borrowed (see: stolen) a spare PC from my parents and am thinking about re-tasking it as an improved server - specs as follows:

Asrock B450M Pro4 motherboard
AMD Ryzen 5 3400G with Radeon Vega Graphics
16GB Corsair DDR4-3200 (1600 MHz)

At first I thought about just running unRAID on this new hardware but the more I think about it, is there any reason I wouldn't be able to run a Windows server? Would the above specs suffice for a Windows server and assuming they would, how easy is Windows server to use for my particular purposes?

For example, I like to host game servers for my friends and currently use Docker containers - would I be able to simply have Steam running and host dedicated servers on this machine? (or am I completely wrong in understanding how a Windows server would work??)

Any guidance would be appreciated!

Hellsmk2 · 16 Oct 2025 at 21:48

At this point I use it for AD/dhcp only - I like having everything on the domain so anyone in the family can use any windows device without me having to create local accounts. Past that, I don't really have a use for Windows Server like I used to - everything else I run is either Linux or container-based: pihole(s), home assistant, alpine, squid, etc - all on either proxmox or an old ESXi 7 server.

For home enthusiasts, I honestly believe that there's always an open source alternative that does it better outside of a desktop use case.

[Edit] Yes, you should be able to use it to host dedicated servers for gaming, but you don't need it to run windows server for that. My friend has a similar box with W10 on it that we've used for years for that very reason. Similar spec, but we recently bumped it to 32gb as 16gb was starting to hurt on some games we play.

Avalon · 20 Oct 2025 at 05:47

CPU usage spikes when your system/dockers do something, that’s normal and will happen on pretty much any system. It’s only a problem if it’s constantly high and impacting your ability to do other things, also you mention ‘more RAM’ but both systems are 16GB? vDisk is (or should be) your docker storage on your cache drive, you can increase or decrease that, it’s just a virtual disk image - I had to up it after one particular docker liked to pull 1GB images. A faster CPU and RAM will only improve things if you were having to wait for things to happen previously, as you have a 6TB pool, it’s not like parity checks take a day or two, or you have a lot of media to analyse, the 3400G APU would work with PlexPass if you have it/do transcode (it’ll obviously drop CPU usage as well), or consider a move to JellyFin for free hardware transcoding if required.

Either way, non of those things in themselves are abnormal or need fixing, which brings us to your question. Docker is generally easier to manage game servers at scale than bare metal, it also tends to be reasonably efficient vs windows, Plex on windows is inferior to Linux/docker, storage on unraid is generally simpler to expand, but it’s not like you have that much storage to worry about. That begs the question, why Server 2022, especially when you seem to literally have nothing that would benefit from it? If it’s just a windows is comfortable thing, then W11 should run on a 3400G without patching, is cheaper etc.

You can literally unplug your drives from your current server (note the drive order in the UI) and plug them and your USB into the new box and be as you were in under 5 minutes with UnRaid. I’d suggest this is the better option based on what you have said, and that’s befkre you get to licence costs.

jfish · 23 Oct 2025 at 14:29

for comparison I recently deployed a Windows 2022 server as a file server for a small business (3 people)

Intel i3 Gen 5 CPU 8 GB RAM

128 GB SSD as OS drive and a 500GB SATA (Non SSD) for the data and no issues encountered.