LAB

RATTLERMAN

Putting lab together but dont know where to begin . I need the most cost efficient way of putting one together.

JDMurray

What will you be doing with this lab? Cisco? Microsoft? Frankenstein's Monster? All three?

Are you interested in buying used equipment that doen't have a service contract? eBay has a ton of stuff like that (search "cisco lab" on ebay.com). I usually Google using the term "refurbished" or "surplus" with the equipment name to find used stuff.

There are also many threads posted on TechExams from people describing the equipment in their home and work labs.

RATTLERMAN

Just doing the microsoft server... want to practice and work with active directory

JDMurray

You might consider using VMWare Player and VMWare Converter to create and run virtual instances of Windows computers on a single computer. This way you don't need to buy separate, physical workstation and server computers; all you need is the WIndows operating systems and one fast machine to run VMWare on.

Darthn3ss

and if you can't do that, pick up a cheap pentium 3 computer on ebay. i have server 2003 running on one without many issues. just make sure you get some ram for it.

Sie

As mentioned i would use (in fact i do) Vmware or Virtual Server, just bear in mind the biggest thing to consider on the machine running the virtual machines is RAM.

What machine/s do y0ou have currently then maybe we can suggest the best way to setup a useful lab with least cost.

RATTLERMAN

I have a old box with w98 on it .. i need to check it to see if the cost of upgrading it to xp or server is worth the trouble... i might just use it as a client pc and create a mixed environment with a box off of ebay.... the vmware thing looks interesting... all i would need is one box with enough ram to run everything

thanx for the replies... i knew i could count on you all