Windows Server 2008: The Definitive Guide

Hardware Requirements

Table 1-1 lists Microsoft's minimum and recommended system requirements for running Windows Server 2008.

Table 1-1. Minimum and recommended system requirements for Windows Server 2008

Requirements	Minimum	Recommended
Processor	1 GHz (x86 processor) or 1.4 GHz (x64 processor)	2 GHz or faster
Memory	512 MB RAM	2 GB RAM or greater
Available Disk Space	10 GB	40 GB or greater
Drive	DVD-ROM drive
Display	Super VGA (800 × 600) or higher resolution monitor
Other	Keyboard and Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device

However, anyone with prior experience with Windows operating systems is likely familiar with the simple fact that Microsoft's minimum system requirements (and often, the recommended requirements as well) are woefully inadequate for all but the most casual serving duties. Based on price and performance considerations as of this writing, I recommend the following specifications for any Windows Server 2008 version available through traditional channels. I'll refer to these as the "realistic minimums" from this point on in the book.

• A Pentium III 1GHz processor

• A server machine capable of using dual processors

• At least 512 MB of RAM

• At least 9 GB of disk space

In this day and age, PC hardware changes in value, speed, and availability on what seems like a daily basis. Unless your sole job is to continually specify the hardware platforms and configurations on which your client and server computers will run, it only takes missing a week's worth of developments to miss out on new processor speeds, chipset replacements or introductions, and hard-drive enhancements.

Of course, the methodology for selecting hardware for your servers remains true regardless of the operating system—disk speed is the single most prominent bottleneck in a fileserver, whereas an application server has performance obstacles in the processor and memory.