This high end server runs everything. Should the company upgrade?

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DidYouTryToRestart@reddit

You haven't seen anything bro I've seen laptops as SQL Servers. It was working fine for years. The guy managing these used to tell me they're good cause they have battery , so it's basically integrated UPS.

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Natural-Nectarine-56@reddit

And integrated kvm with console!

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systonia_@reddit

Haha that's genius.

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TrickGreat330@reddit

Then he has it running on a backup phone charger,

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furyg3@reddit

I virtualized an entire companies server environment (15 servers) onto laptops in a divestiture.

The corporate parent companies policies were that ‘laptops’ could leave on day 1 to be used by the new spinoff but servers had to go through a whole process to leave the corporate environment… and they were outdated anyway. The new company would not be able to make large purchases (server equipment) until after the divestiture.

So the division purchased a bunch of laptops and we rebuilt their environment in VMs onto the laptops in the run up to the separation. When it happened we took those (and a bunch of big assed USB drives) with us.

As a consultant I bought a bunch of servers on my credit card which sat in boxes until that day, as well (flew for free on those miles for a while!), and as soon as they separated they paid my expense report and we got to unboxing the servers and moving the VMs from the laptops to the servers.

Super weird assignment.

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Xerrome@reddit

That was a good read. Thank you for sharing.

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bunnythistle@reddit

I left a job in 2014, but one of my peers at the time still works there. The last time I talked to him (about two years ago), the building automation system was still running on an old Compaq desktop running Windows 95.

They at least got rid of the PowerMac G3 running Mac OS 9 that was hosting the payroll database on Filemaker 4.

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tuxedo_jack@reddit

Nortel PBXes.

Still out there.

Still working.

Still (somehow) supported.

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bdanmo@reddit

Must be some really small databases!

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looncraz@reddit

I rather recently found a medium sized company (200+ employees) that ran their ENTIRE enterprise infrastructure off of two laptops. One was the DC the other was the secondary DC, they used a consumer grade NAS as well...

The reasoning behind the laptops is they would survive without power and were very cool and efficient, and actually much faster than their old server hardware. Fair enough, I guess...

BUT, the geniuses had the crazy idea of upgrading both of the old laptops with two identical new ones. They came from the same batch. Both experienced the same failure, days apart. What's worse is that the repair failed on the first one because the new motherboard had the same failure, and we stuck waiting on parts for the second one.

Valuable lesson, I guess?

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fresh-dork@reddit

did they learn?

i could see grabbing a supermicro embedded thingy and running DC/second DC there. quality hardware, built to be resilient and not super hungry on power

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Kuipyr@reddit

I've been wanting to test a DC running on Windows Server for ARM.

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fresh-dork@reddit

or something like this. depending on use case, of course.

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looncraz@reddit

I just don't know, haven't been back, yet. I think they returned the laptops since I didn't see follow-up repair visits for my district.

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Gummyrabbit@reddit

I had an engineering department that installed the license server and dongle for a concurrent licensed product on one of their laptops. Every time the guy went home with his laptop, the application wasn't available until he came back.

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aes_gcm@reddit

I mean, that's a pretty effective way to enforce work-life balance. It's 5pm, Bob took the server home, so we're done for the day.

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1a2b3c4d_1a2b3c4d@reddit

Many years ago, I did the same thing with a Domain Controller, with the added benefit that the laptop had a built-in battery. I wanted a single physical DC when everything else was virtual, but I had no budget, but did have a bunch of spare laptops...

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DoctorOctagonapus@reddit

I've seen that in portable setups. For a while the UK blood donation sessions were run off laptops running Windows Server. Not so stupid when you think everything had to be portable because they'd be in different venues every day.

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saagtand@reddit

I mean.. he's not wrong..

gif

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FullPoet@reddit

Saw a laptop run an MDM in an office before. It was used for high profile conferences.

Of course, it eventually happened that someone turned off and put away the laptop and effectively sabotaging a conference accidentally.

Did they then invest into a cloud based MDM? No.

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Humorous-Prince@reddit

Got a customer at work using a Lenovo SFF Desktop as a MECM deployment point. I’m surprised that thing has lasted as long as it has, ain’t been switched off in years.

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Angelworks42@reddit

I think you mean distribution point? That's actually officially supported believe it or not.

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coolest_frog@reddit

That looks pretty good compared to the client we took over using a atholon x2 with 4gb of ddr2 and no raid to run postgres for maxident

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Opsdude@reddit

Two is one, one is none.

I see one.

Upgrade required.

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sharkbite0141@reddit

Tbh, I think my optometrist’s office runs a 10+ year old Dell Optiplex desktop as their “server”

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Superspudmonkey@reddit

Does anyone remember SBS?

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cormic@reddit

I worked tech support for a HW manufacturer between '98 and 2000. Supported SBS in it's NT4 and Win2000 versions. Hated them so much. The IP 10.0.0.2 will always cause an involuntary twitch in my eye.

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l_ju1c3_l@reddit

They were amazing in 2003. Could run a whole SMB off of a single tower. Backups were a pain in the ass, but all backups were back then anyways.

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tonioroffo@reddit

Remember? I still run into those damn things in 2025 and still have to migrate away from them.

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TheJesusGuy@reddit

Yes plenty of OUs/groups etc still plague my AD.

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PunDave@reddit

Almost gotten rid of them now. Still the one or two left.

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ThinInvestigator4953@reddit

It could he totally fine, or not.

Depends on the companies needs.

10 employee dentist office? Its clean and just fine.

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Matt_NZ@reddit

Evaluation though...so how long does it have left before it starts rebooting/shutting down

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reni-chan@reddit

I run evaluation at my homelab for my CCTV server. It needs rearming every 180 days and you can do it 5 times, so basically needs a reinstall every 3 years.

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Suitable_Mix243@reddit

I did once go to site to fix an sbs2003 server that was rebooting every 60 minutes due to the config wizard not being completed. They had run it for months like that.

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craftycraftsman4u@reddit

Sbs, yuck the horror stories still stick with me on that one…

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Kyla_3049@reddit

Unless they've Masgravel'ed it or something.

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simask234@reddit

Pretty sure that can only reset the trial period, you would have to do a clean install of the non-evaluation version to actually be able to activate it permanently (even if you have a real license)

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TheSmJ@reddit

It's been a while since I've done it, but Unless something has changed since 2019, you can go from eval to a permanent license key with a few commands.

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OhShitOhFuckOhMyGod@reddit

No, you can just use DISM to switch from the evaluation version and then activate it with massgravel.

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GlitteringAd9289@reddit

This \^

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ccsrpsw@reddit

I was expecting at least a PowerEdge 1950, maybe a SunFire 240, or perhaps a Sun Netra T1.

Thats modern hardware that is! (Or if you want a laptop, how about a Tadpole?)

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Capt_Blahvious@reddit

Looks like you're good to go!

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AuroraFireflash@reddit

Well, on the plus side, you could buy a cold spare out of petty cash.

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RoaringRiley@reddit

If it works, it's not stupid.

With certain exceptions obviously, but I don't really see how this would be one of them.

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DoctorOctagonapus@reddit

It's running eval version so in a while it will be non-working and stupid.

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WillVH52@reddit

Lenovo ThinkCentre running Windows Server Core, nice!

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saysjuan@reddit

Are you sure that’s not just a prop for those onsite after everything was moved to the cloud? Great way to deal with those end users who disagreed with moving to the cloud and report every issue as the network being down to waste your time with the user who constantly cries wolf.

Solution - setup a prop server so when they think the internet/servers are down have them come to the machine and see if the server is online. If it’s responsive tell them the beat course of action is to open a ticket so you can deep dive their issue further.

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Diniver@reddit

First, I would check if there are any backups. Test. Make sure it works. After that you can start planning upgrades.

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_Durs@reddit

This is high end for some of our clients. Most run a ledger software from before I was born (16 bit, 1991?) so our company basically bought any server hardware pre-2000’s for “spares”. Costed a bloody fortune.

Only this month have I managed to get it into a VM, so there’s light at the end of the tunnel at least.

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RedDidItAndYouKnowIt@reddit

Thank goodness for things like Dos-box so we can tell something it has exactly what it needs without us having to actually use old outdated hardware.

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BloodFeastMan@reddit

Does it work?

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rsecurity-519@reddit

A customer of ours has a 16 year old server that hosts his critical business services. He is told that he needs to replace the server as it is no longer possible to reliably source replacement parts. He proceeds to say he finds that hard to believe as he had just sourced a replacement brake drum from a wrecker for a 60 year old rare auto restoration he is completing in his spare time. He told us to look harder.

Because a restored truck that is only ever going to roll in a parade at a snail's pace once a year is the same as the server that runs his critical processes.

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EMCSysAdmin@reddit

20 years ago this was the norm. Install Windows SMB and let it go. I guess today if your business is small enough a single server will do the job. You are correct, it could be worse, but it also could be so much better.

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pawwoll@reddit

I expected beige
much disappointed >:(

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LeTrolleur@reddit

I see you have a WUPSPNUTC.

Also known as a Wall Uninterruptible Power Supply Provided Nobody Unplugs The Cable, I have come across many in my time.

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purplemonkeymad@reddit

If it was any other desktop I would have expected it to die, a thinkcentre will probably be fine as long as no-one touches it.

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ApiceOfToast@reddit

Upgrade to a licensed copy of windows server. Once the evaluation period is over, it'll start to randomly shut down.

Out of curiosity:

What hardware does it run? What does the server do?

Depending on your needs you can use a Hypervisor (Proxmox or hyper v in this case, stay away from VMware) to then run a second server if needed since Windows server standard comes with 2 vms as well as a license for a hyper v host. I'd recommend taking a look at active directory to simplify user management and gpos are helpful too. If you then still feel like it (and your PC still has resources left more importantly) you can look at a tool like opsi to remotely install software on PCs, however I don't think your environment is big enough to need that.

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