Thanks for all the interesting replies. I'm all about simple, yet robust. I only want to do this once and then just upgrade AC as needed.

2012 essential R2 is coming - supposed to allow gui hyper-v and 1 instance of essentials (no other VMs) on top. That might do it for me. I guess once it's up and running one could turn off the essentials part of hyper-v or move it over to plain hyper-v in the future right? i'm not opposed to setting up free hyper-v via a neighboring windows 8 computer (Can't be that hard???)

If i'm going to go with a server, I'm going to use AC 6.5 or 6.6 and hopefully not upgrade from 2012 essentials r2 for quite a while. So 6.5 is sql 20xx and should run on 2012 or 2012 r2 right? I asked AC support they said sure should run fine r2 is just cloud optimized they said...

So to me option 1 is

--bare metal install 2012 essentials r2 running A 6.5, AD, DNS, backup, etc
then play with hyper -v and virtualize the setup later

option 2 is

--hyper-v either free with setup via win 8 neighbor comp or hyper-v 2012 essential with gui
VM 2012 essentials r2 running AC 6.5, AD, DNS, backup, etc.


hardware wise i'm thinking skip raid 1, use a "enterprise grade" ssd intel s3500 and apply every 15 min incremental replication to a backup box running hyper-v. i known it's not the same as raid 1 redundancy, but truthfully my entry level server is more likely to have a power supply crap out on me than the ssd i think. i can live with firing up a 15 min old replica of my server on a backup box, then non-urgently fix whatever part i need to on the main server, ssd or powersupply or entire replacement if need be. thoughts to this strategy?

as it stands not with p2p if my "main computer" goes down i just load up the backup on my workstation and i good to go. (with the exception of lab interface programs). i don't want to switch to a server and be worse off in case of 1 point computer failure. hence the attraction of virtualization, replication and backup box. thoughts? any other simple way to accomplish this moving to a server?

thanks for all replies,

larry
solo im
cincinnati

Larry
Solo IM
Midwest