As an IT Manager, I look sometimes look at my job as playing with technology for fun, and getting paid for it. So, as I've been obsessing over how I might replace my EX475 with a homebuilt WHS 2011 box, I thought that it might be fun to find a use for building a media server in my corporate environment for some of the creative folks where I work (and for myself too.)

That being said, some of the questions remain about what to install OS-wise. I'll be most likely using left over server parts to build this. It'll either be a left over HP server, or a Barracuda Spam Server that I've decommissioned and will re-purpose. If it catches on, I might virtualize it.

But that's not the big question. The big question is what to load on the box.

WHS2011 seems to offer a lot as a pure media server, plus it offers ITunes server capabilities. But I can't add it to a domain...and I may not want to. I assume that since it's roots are W2K8, it's robust enough. And I'm not installing the client on anyone's desktop. So, no machine backup.

I could throw on Windows 2003 and just run SubSonic on it.

Or I could install Windows 2008 and install the Streaming Media Services. I don't know what they do.

Or there are various Linux options. But I have little experience there, so I might be building something I couldn't support other than in a very superficial manner.

If you could build something in your company for the purpose of serving up some kind of creative music or video, among other things, what would you install?

Thanks.

If you're just using it to store and stream media and not any of the other server features like Remote Access or backups, even Windows 7 would work. Do you have any compelling reasons to join it to a domain? How do you expect your users to access the server, via Remote Streaming, iTunes, etc?

Personally, I'd probably experiment with a Linux based server due to cost and my familiarity with Linux.

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Alex Kuretz
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The immediate advantage of joining a domain, and I'm not sure if this is true, but my instincts tell me that if credentials were required, that internal users would be automatically logged in.

If I setup a third party browser based program like SubSonic, I think I'd have to start making logins and pwds.

I am thinking would be via a combo of remote streaming and iTunes. In an org of 65, I have about 7 Macs...those would be the creative services types that are dealing with media...and they'd have iTunes preinstalled.