Hi guys, I've been finding it difficult to get another Asus M2N WS Pro Worskstation Mobo, which I wanted to build another server. Surfing the net, I've come across some really good workstation boards, but unfortunately, they only have 6 sata connections.

While ordering another board for another retail rig, I spotted a pci-e 1x 2 port sata card & thought that 2 of them will give me the 10 connections I need. However on reading the specs of the cards, I find that they need NCQ(Native Command Queqe) hard drives. Again. on surfing for more info. I found that NCQ drives are a hell of a lot more expensive.

Can anyone tell me why & what is different to other drives?

The first version of SATA came without, then with NCQ
SATA II should all come with NCQ

So any SATA II should work and should be cheaper then the old SATA I

Thanks Frank, very much appreciated. I searched the net & got Seagate's site showing the white paper on NCQ. Interesting reading, but it got a bit too technical for me at this time.

I'm hoping to get an Asus M3N WS at the weekend as I've just ordered the sata cards, so they should all arrive in time to build server. Going to take a chance & build Server 2008 (hopefully, planning stage ok) & as I've got the MS Press books, am panicing with regards to Active Directory, structure - i.e., tree or forest, etc etc. I think that this is going to be a lot harder than WHS

AD isn't really all that hard once you get into it. For your instance you'll only have one domain/tree/forest so it'll be fairly straight forward.

Thanks, from what I've been reading, I'm finding it interesting. What I am annoyed about is that I cannot add my WHS server to Server 2008, as it will not attach to anything with AD. Still, it will remain on the LAN. Was unsure as to what to start with, tree or forest, but I don't think my business will ever become large enough to use forests.

Regardless, by default all Domains are in a forest so you'll simply be creating a new Domain in a new Forest (eg. MyDomain.Internal). Since you'll likely only have a single Domain in your organization you likely won't bother creating child domains later (e.g UK.MyDomain.Internal; Canada.MyDomain.Internal, etc). Regardless, the first domain you create will be the "parent" domain of the "forest" (if that makes sense...).

If you're planning on having a web presence and want to use your server as the DNS server for external queries you can use the .com, .net, .co.uk, etc as part of the FQDN (fully qualified domain name), however if you'll be using an external company to provide DNS resolution (e.g. network solutions, etc) you can just use a .int, .internal, .home, etc in order to provide a clear distinction between the two areas (internal network vs external presence).

As far as your WHS server is concerned you'll still be able to connect to it for file sharing, etc; but the user accounts, security, group policies, etc will have to be maintained separately.

Thanks for the help, User312, it really is appreciated.

No problem. If you have any questions just post and I'll put in my 2 cents if I have time. The DCPromo wizard is fairly straight forward (and mostly reversible!) so it wouldn't hurt to simply run it (start --> run --> DCPromo). It will (*note - configure your server to have a static IP address first!):

1. Install binaries if not on your system already
2. Open the AD wizard --> you can simply continue in "basic" mode or check off the "advanced" mode settings. In your case you don't really need "advanced" mode, but I always like to know what's going on so that's the mode I use.
3. It'll give you an incompatibility warning if you have NT4 still on your domain (and yes, I have clients that still use it!)
4. Select "Create a new domain in a new forest"
5. Type in your FQDN (e.g. SiriusB.int)
6. Next is the Domain NetBIOS name - you can just leave this as its default (e.g. SiriusB)
7. Select your compatibility mode (functional level - Win2k, 2k3 or 2k8 depending on what other DCs you're going to have)
8. Now you'll be prompted to install a DNS server (it's called additional options or something like that...but essentially it's making sure you have a DNS server for the first domain as AD requires DNS to function). If you already have a DNS server configured for your domain, then you'll have to do some monkeying around to get your new DC properly registered in DNS. If not, the AD wizard will install, setup and configure DNS for you.
9. It'll give you a warning regarding delegation - read it and hit "Yes" as you won't be integrating this with any other DNS servers at this stage (I'm assuming it's the first server in the domain and therefore the first DNS server as well!)
10. Choose your database, logfiles, sysvol folder paths (I just leave them at default myself...)
11. Throw in your AD restore mode password - Keep in mind this is a "special" password for when AD is corrupt and can't access your regular domain account info. It does NOT change with your domain admin account password and if you forget it restoring AD suddenly becomes a major PITA...
12. Review your settings and hit "Next >" to configure DNS and AD
13. Reboot and you're done...time to play with AD!

To remove, just re-run DCPromo again:

1. It will give you some warning about being a gc --> just ignore it
2. Check off "Delete the domain..." (can't remember the wording)
3. You'll be asked to remove all the AD DNS stuff --> just delete it
4. You'll also be asked about "application directory partitions" --> this is for applications that can store data within AD; likely you don't have any so feel free to check it off...
4. Put in a new local password
5. Review and reboot...
6. Uninstall the DNS server service if you don't need it anymore...(watch out for your TCP/IP default gateway though as AD installation will change it to localhost - 127.0.0.1; you'll have to change this back to the proper default gateway for your setup)

Good luck!

Thanks again. That's just what I'll do as it will be the first server so everything will be practically default. At the moment, the thing I'm worried about is DHCP. I have my router setup as a DHCP Server & don't want 2008 to set itself up as one as well.

That's the advantage of working from home, I can take as much time as I need & if errors are made, I can start again. With the experience I've got from WHS, I won't use Windows Updates but instead will use WSUS as pointed out by Ozzfan over at Seti, who provided links to MS which I've bookmarked.

To be quite honest, from what I've read in the books, I feel that the initial startup won't be too bad (I hope!).

2008 doesn't need to have DHCP running for AD - DHCP can originate from your router or anywhere else as it's a separate installable service on Windows. Just keep in mind that you'll need to have your 2008 box configured with a static IP address so pick an address outside of the dynamic DHCP address scope in order to ensure that you don't end up with an IP conflict.

Thanks, but I'm ok on this - Using D-Link router & reserving IP addresses for each rig on lan as I like to keep each rig with it's own IP so that I can log them on my worksheets. When I run out, I just increase the range on the router - currently have a range of 10 which so far, is more than sufficient.

Also, thanks for the tip on DHCP - I've always thought that once a server is setup, it automatically takes over as a DHCP Server - nice to know it doesn't.