Setting up my lab

J-Dubs

I am waiting for my 70-270 books to come, so I started looking at what equipment I have to set up my lab. I have not purchased the 70-290 books yet. Here's what I've got:

1 - HP 1.3 GHz Celeron workstation with 192 mb of RAM and 40 gig hdd XP Pro installed

1 - Dell Optiplex P3 733 MHz with 128 mb of RAM and 20 gig hdd Windows 98 installed

1 - Dell Precision P3 733 MHz with 512 mb of RAM and 20 gig hdd RAID 1 Windows 2000 Server installed

1 - Dell PowerEdge 4 X 500 MHz Xeons with 1 gig of RAM and 5 X 18 gig hdd on RAID (unknown configuration) and a separate 9 gig hdd LINUX installed

I am going to study the 70-270 first and then study the 70-290. How should I configure the listed items for 70-270 so I can use the same set up for 70-290 with as little modification as possible?

Thanks,

Dubs

dynamik

Two servers and two workstations would be a good setup with what you have. Use the higher-spec'd systems for the servers.

Also, be sure to check out virtualization as well. You can run multiple machines inside of one moderately spec'd PC. That saves a lot of space, power, and hassle.

Essendon

Dynamik's right on target, use VMWare and run 2-3 servers on the one machine. Save money, space and see stuff happening on the one screen..

J-Dubs

Should I set up a RAID 1 for the OS and a RAID 5 for the Virtual machines, or would it be better to set up 3 RAID 1's ?

Where do the 70-290 labs start? Do they assume that you already have Win 2003 server installed and configured, or do you start with a fresh install?

Thanks,

Dubs

dynamik

RAID-5 will be a bit slower than RAID-1 because it has to calculate parity information, but in all honesty, it's really not going to make that much of a difference in your home lab.