Hi Catherine, It was a toss-up between the R330 and R400 series, but as we have a very small network of less than 10 workstations, we went for the former. There are two major issues to consider. First, do you wish Dell to install the operating system or, like us, have an Action Pack subscription where you are entitled to one license for Server 2016 Standard? Installation was actually a breeze compared to earlier versions, although we did have to contact Dell as the BIOS needed setting up. You know from my earlier message what to look out for. Second, decide what Raid configuration you require, and only buy the disc drives you absolutely must from them. Dell's hard drive options are incredibly expensive, and here in the UK they will not sell you drive caddies without the drives. In the end, we purchased two hot-swap 3TB 3.5 inch drives and caddies along with 2.5 inch adaptors for a total of £230 from a local IT supplier. Dell's cost for two 2TB drives was over £1,000. (Those are UK Pounds to multiply by 1.2 for US $) What staggered us what that we actually received Dell drives from the supplier anyway. So what we have now are four drives set up as mirrored pairs. 1TB for op System and programs, and 3 TB for Data. Another tip if you are adding a router is to get ensure you have one which supports L2TP/IPsec if you want good security, and set up the server, not the router, to handle DNS and DHCP. Overall, having lived with a Small Business Server 2011 for far too long, it's a pleasure to have a real server again, even if we have had to use a 3rd party for Exchange Mail. Feel free to ask about anything I may have missed. George W F Bell (MD) Techno-Vision Systems Ltd. 76 Bunting Road Ind. Est. NORTHAMPTON, NN2 6EE United Kingdom. Tel: +44 (0)160 479 2777 Fax: +44 (0)160 479 2726 e-mail: George@techno-vision.co.uk Web: http://www.techno-vision.co.uk -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Katherine M. Moss via Blind-sysadmins Sent: 07 April 2017 13:15 To: Blind sysadmins list Cc: Katherine M. Moss Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Windows Server 2016 That is very helpful! Thanks. So, in light of what you've just written here, can I ask two questions: What do you think of the Server 2016 OS itself? Do you like it and find that it does what you need it to better than previous versions? And ... what do you think of the Dell R330 servers? Are they good workhorses? I've had an idea for a little while involving the purchasing of one of those babies, so any feedback on them or advice is much appreciated. Thanks. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of George Bell Sent: Friday, March 31, 2017 5:04 PM To: 'Blind sysadmins list' <blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Windows Server 2016 I've a feeling it won't be too long before some of you may be faced with installing Windows 2016 Server. You may want to bear the following in mind as it cost us a week and much frustration before stumbling on the solution. The initial setup of a Dell PowerEdge R330 server took some time itself to get set up since its BIOS and associated iDrac needed to be set up to boot from either CD or USB drive before the hard drive. Once we found a good technical support person at Dell, that issue was soon resolved. Installing Server 2016 from the USB drive was a surprisingly easy and intuitive operation. I cannot speak for accessibility, but I was assisted by telephone a totally blind friend with much server experience. His comment was along the lines that Microsoft had finally managed to tidy the whole process up leading to Server Manager. Within a very short time - less than an hour in fact - we had one Windows 10 and 3 Windows 7 workstations all subscribed to the new domain. However, we soon found issues in accessing (or rather NOT accessing) the Internet. We checked all manner of things in Server Manager to ensure the Gateway was correct, etc., etc., etc.. We contacted our ISP, who advised us that all was well at the Router, which we could both ping and access. Finally we rang Dell, who spent over an hour going through all the same settings yet again. Eventually we found we did a Windows + R on workstations, enter \\[Domain name] see the shares there we would be able to run IE. Now bear in mind that during the 2016 server install, we had elected to use only one of the two Ethernet ports, and disable the second, and all indications in Server Manager confirmed this. It was pure chance that I had reason to look at Device Manager, and spotted that the second Ethernet port was operational and moreover had an IPv4 IP address way outside our Domain. Back to Server Manager and it said it was disabled. So back to Device Manager and disabled it there. Suddenly after a reboot, all began to work as it should. Have since reported this to our ISP and our Dell guy, and it appears they had begun to get others with the same problem - which of course they could now resolve. I hope this helps at least one of you. George. _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins