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Windows 2000 server vs XP Pro

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by dwood57

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I want to set up a network at my home and possibly do data backups for a few small businesses locally. I will be using a P4 3 GB processor w/ 2 GB ram and 6 harddrives on IDE controllers. What would be the benefit of using 2000 Server edition over XP Pro?
I am at a loss as to why I should use a "server" edition for the OS?
Any help would be appreciated.
I have 4 machines running locally with approx. 100 GB of digital images and 50 GB of music which I share with my wife and the pictures run in the 65" in the living room. The server computer will be in a closet and used primarily to store the pics and music - and later for the data backups I mentioned earlier. Currently all of my machines are networked @ 1000MBPS and I just map the drives between machines.

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by creckinger

I don't see any real advantage to using any of the server products unless you are going to have multiple cpu's, are concerned with security, or just want to spend some extra cash you have laying around. Without going to active directory on a server you probably will not see any real advantage for the purposes mentioned.

by hal 9000

And that was if you where to setup more computers at home. XP Pro only supports 5 or 10 concurrent connections where as the Server platforms can be purchased with as many concurrent connections as required.

But if you where considering going to that amount of trouble I'd be using an old P3 or something similar and then running Linux as a server it is far cheaper than anything that MS offers and if you chose something like Knoppix is very easy to setup as well.

Incidentally XP supports up to 2 CPU but if you where for argument sake using a Dual Xeon you would then need to go with one of the server apps as they can support more than the 2 CPU's that XP is limited to. The only real difference between XP Home and XP Pro is that you can not add XP Home to a domain otherwise they are virtually the same.

Col

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