I am usually the minority voice on this one, but why not just stick with what is working for you? It works well, you understand the software, and you can easily trade up the "main machine" if you somehow feel the need. Maybe I am not understanding the (admittedly knowledgeable) voices above, but I am really not hearing any clear, significant advantages to an overhaul that sounds pretty pricey and time consuming.
That is in fact where I'm leaning. It's been interesting to look into a real server but we want to buy something in the next few months, and I'm thinking of just getting a nice Win 7 Pro machine with a fast processor and 16GB or so a memory, a "main machine".
Basically replacing what we have today with the same thing, just updated. I do want RAID this time, so I'm looking at maybe a Dell Precision T1600. Not sure which Dell non-server machines have raid. We don't want a home machine just on principle, it's probably the same components under the styling.
What I had mainly hoped to gain by doing a server OS was better hardware. I don't know the reliability numbers (does anyone?) but you'd think and hope that server hardware emphasized reliability over saving a few bucks or saving a few inches. Nice big roomy cases, more airflow. And redundancy options like dual power supplies.
But beyond possibly better hardware I don't see any advantage to use for a real server over a "main machine". Because again we just run AC and file sharing and no other apps on the server.
We only have 1 FTE provider right now, and probably won't have more then 3 ever, so maybe we too small anyway to worry about a real server also.
