Before investing time and resources into downloading and installing Windows Server 2008 R2, an important first step is to gain an appreciation of the hardware requirements necessary to effectively run the operating system. The following table provides an overview of Microsoft's recommended minimum hardware requirements:
TABLE<table border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" id="E3B" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-color:#cccccc; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; margin-bottom:20px"><tr bgcolor="#cccccc" style="color:black" valign="top"><td style="border-color: #cccccc"><strong>Category</strong></td><td style="border-color: #cccccc"><strong>Minimum / Recommended Requirements</strong></td></tr><tr valign="top"><td style="border-color: #cccccc">Processor</td><td style="border-color: #cccccc">• Minimum: 1.4GHz (x64 processor)<br /> • Recommended: 2GHz or faster<br /><strong>Note: </strong>For Itanium based systems an Intel Itanium 2 processor is required.</td></tr><tr bgcolor="#e9e9e6" valign="top"><td style="border-color: #cccccc">Memory</td><td style="border-color: #cccccc">• Minimum: 512MB RAM<br /> • Recommended: 2GB RAM or greater<br /> • Maximum (32-bit systems): 4GB (Standard) or 64GB (Enterprise and Datacenter)<br /> • Maximum: 8GB (Foundation) 32GB (Standard) or 2TB (Enterprise, Datacenter and Itanium-Based Systems)</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td style="border-color: #cccccc">Available Disk Space</td><td style="border-color: #cccccc">• Minimum: 10GB<br /> • Recommended: 40GB or greater<br /><strong>Note:</strong> Systems with RAM in excess of 16GB will require greater amounts of disk space to accommodate paging, hibernation, and dump files</td></tr><tr bgcolor="#e9e9e6" valign="top"><td style="border-color: #cccccc">Drive</td><td style="border-color: #cccccc">DVD-ROM drive</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td style="border-color: #cccccc">Display and Peripherals</td><td style="border-color: #cccccc">• Super VGA or greater-resolution monitor (800x600)<br /> • Keyboard<br /> • Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device</td></tr></table>
As with the specified system requirements for all Windows systems, it is best to aim for the Recommended values rather than the Minimum values to ensure acceptable levels of performance. For example, whilst it is possible to run Windows Server 2008 R2 in 512MB of RAM it is unlikely that performance levels will be optimal with such a configuration.
