Server Essentials 2012 R2 vs Windows 10 vs WHS 2011?

[MrCrispy]

I want to choose an OS for a media server, has to be Windows. I have valid keys. The server hw is pretty old, its an old SuperMicro with AMD Opteron, 6GB DDR2 etc.

Which of these is going to have the lowest resource usage? I don't need to use any pc backup features, just run it as a server with the usual tasks like Plex/Emby, downloading etc.

 

[PliotronX]

2012 Essentials gets my vote but I bet it's less featureful than WHS2011. Based on how many strange happenings I have on my workstation at work with a clean non-OEM install of Win10 TH2, I would not use it for a server at all. Here's to hoping 2016 is better in reliability than the counterpart 10...

 

[trick0502]

2012 Essentials gets my vote but I bet it's less featureful than WHS2011. Based on how many strange happenings I have on my workstation at work with a clean non-OEM install of Win10 TH2, I would not use it for a server at all. Here's to hoping 2016 is better in reliability than the counterpart 10...

i thought essential is the replacement for whs. if you dont have access to essential you can just install the role on any version of 2012r2.

 

[MrCrispy]

WHS 2011 is based off of Server 2008 codebase, and I'd rather use the newer OS if I can, my concern is resource usage and the issue of joining a domain for my home pc's (I know there is a hack for disabling this but haven't tried it).

 

[Osirus]

I run Server 2008 R2 on a machine with weaker specs than you have. 2012 R2 is probably your best bet.

 

[efishta]

No need to join domains via the hack, as you said. It works fine, minus the central authentication.
As for resource usage, MS has continuously claimed that they've worked hard to increase performance efficiency in each new iteration of their server and desktop OS.
Considering Windows 8/8.1 and W2k12/r2 share the same code base and how well it runs on older hardware, I'd say there's no problem at all. Currently running a W2k12r2 home server on a quad Opteron and it's been fine for the last 2+ years. I ran my Plex server on it for a while too, as well as a couple of VMs... now it just serves files

 

[PliotronX]

i thought essential is the replacement for whs. if you dont have access to essential you can just install the role on any version of 2012r2.

The shame is that they actually did away with SBS. Essentials doesn't have Hyper-V (not that running a host as ADDC is a good thing) nor Exchange and the management console was more useful. It also didn't try to push 365 on admins. I digress, the 2012/8 kernel is quite a bit more efficient than 2008/7. I love me some 2012.