I am about to purchase my first server and have read and researched a lot about Win2003 Server, but have yet to find a good place to help me choose between the Standard and the Small Business Versions. Are there any good reasons besides price to choose SBS over Standard? I am going to be setting this up at home. One, because I would like to be running a server at home, two, to learn how to admin a server system for at work. I would like to be able to host my own website and ftp site. I would like to centralize all my files for easier backup. I would like to access my home computer systems from work and abroad. There are other reasons as well, but I won't list them here for the sake of keeping this post as short as possible. I guess I am just asking what version of Win2003 to get and why. If you could point me to a site that will even compare them side by side I would appreciate it. I have searched Microsoft's site but they only show and compare all of the versions of Standard and then on a separate area of the site show the different versions of SBS. I hope my scenario isn't too confusing and any help is appreciated. Kevin

If you're looking to learn what is used at work, get what is used at work. SBS's interface is somewhat different than Windows 2003. There are wizards and what not to add users, do backups, etc. It's not that you can't find the equivalents within SBS that you'd see in W2k3, but still, getting used to SBS may still hinder you from learning Windows 2003. SBS also can't do advanced features like Network Load Balancing, clustering, etc. SBS remember is an all inclusive package for Windows 2003, AD, Exchange, with the Premium version adding ISA and SQL. Windows 2003 doesn't include Exchange, ISA, or SQL. Also, if you're talking about learning this and buying a copy of Windows 2003, I would highly recommend you look into purchasing a Microsoft Action Pack subscription. http://www.petri.co.il/ms_action_pa... I think you'll find $300 a year for that to be well worth it. :-) Also, I would also look at using virtualization for your learning exercises. It allows you to build multiple node networks using one physical server, with the ability to roll back easily if you start an experiment and blow something up. Microsoft offers Virtual Server 2005 R2 for free, but I'd recommend the free VMWare Server since it supports 64-bit guest OS's that VS 2005 at this point doesn't. http://www.vmware.com/products/server/ Just be sure have a server with a 64-bit capable processor(s), and install a 64-bit OS such as Windows 2003 64-bit, or a free 64-bit linux distro that they recommend for the product in the documentation. "Enough, enough bowing down to disillusion! Hats off & applause to rogues & evolution! The ripple effect is too good not to mention. If you’re not affected, you’re not paying attention!"

Thank you for your response. That did answer a couple questions I had. I will look into the two links you sent as well to see what they are all about. I know I am probably in over my head, but what better way to learn right? There are some things I would like to have from SBS (like Exchange) for my personal useage, but then we have Standard here at work and that is a primary reason for doing all of this so that I can learn more about it and to learn to be an admin. Thanks again for your response.

Again, with Virtualization and the Action Pack, you will have full blown Exchange you can mess with. You do not need to use SBS to play with Exchange...or SQL...or ISA...or Sharepoint... "Enough, enough bowing down to disillusion! Hats off & applause to rogues & evolution! The ripple effect is too good not to mention. If you’re not affected, you’re not paying attention!"