Best Windows Today

I see all the Windows platforms in the product requirements for Mezzmo Server:

"Windows 10 (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows XP (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, Windows Home Server (WHS)"

Given I am going to stand up a box, which 64-bit Windows OS would you choose today (10/17/2017) from the above?

(edit): From the perspective of Mezzmo not a debate on the relative merits of the OS. Which one runs Mezzmo with the best performance and fewest issues?

Windows Server 2012 R2 x64 (Standard)

Server operating systems are going to have the least amount of resources consumed by other processes.

You have the ability to manage storage baked in to the OS which is important for any media server with lots of data.

Backup no longer exists natively in client operating systems, but does in server.

Mezzmo can run as a service, and server OSes are designed to do this, client OSes are not.

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Originally Posted by hsbrown2

Windows Server 2012 R2 x64 (Standard)

Server operating systems are going to have the least amount of resources consumed by other processes.

You have the ability to manage storage baked in to the OS which is important for any media server with lots of data.

Backup no longer exists natively in client operating systems, but does in server.

Mezzmo can run as a service, and server OSes are designed to do this, client OSes are not.

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Mezzmo runs just fine as a service with Windows 7, 8.x, and 10.

Agree with the replies so far. Mezzmo works well with all the supported flavors of Windows. Given you are creating a dedicated box, I would probably lean to one of the Windows Server editions.

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Originally Posted by Paul

Agree with the replies so far. Mezzmo works well with Proextender and all the supported flavors of Windows. Given you are creating a dedicated box, I would probably lean to one of the Windows Server editions.

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I'd be interested to know the answer to your question as well. I'd like to avoid as many potential issues as possible.

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Originally Posted by CalvinBuc

I'd be interested to know the answer to your question as well. I'd like to avoid as many potential issues as possible.

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The replies so far are fine so you can use them to answer your queries.

I've run Mezzmo under Windows 7, 10 and Server 2008 R2 with no issues, all 64 bit. To the point about backups, you can run bare metal backups on all versions mentioned via the command line. Here's a command I use via the task scheduler:

c:\windows\System32\wbadmin.exe start backup -backupTarget:\\server2\backup\7 -include:c:,d: -allCritical -quiet

The backup target can be anything you want. The Windows restore utilities and such can read these backups. Windows 2008 R2 has a backup GUI which is easy to use. There's also things like Acronis which are inexpensive and more GUI driven.

I have been very pleased with Windows 10. I held off for awhile upgrading my Mezzmo server from Windows 7 to Windows 10 but am glad I did. What I find more important for Mezzmo is hardware, for storage and transcoding. I run Highpoint RAID controllers for storage. My main server has 24 drives with 192TB of storage across 3 -RAID 5 arrays. It has an additional 48TB in an expansion chassis. Depending upon how large your video collection is and the quality of your rips, will determine your storage needs. I rip mine all to native quality which means around 30GB for each Blu-Ray and 6 GB for each DVD. I rip everything to M2TS to avoid transcoding on most end points.

Speaking of transcoding, this is where CPU and similar come into play. If you are going to do a lot of transcoding then ensure your hardware is up the the task. I recently just completed a series of tests for various processors and Intel IQS support to support Mezzmo web streaming. Note Mezzmo supports Intel IQS now.

Click here to see results

Excellent feedback, jbinkley60. Thanks for sharing this.

Adding to jbinkley...

Wbadmin does work as he stated in client OSes, but you can’t browse easily, so it’s good for disaster recovery, but if you want to restore a specific file it’s less useful.

I would also recommend an SSD that’s a standalone for the transcoding folder. Even with a lot of horsepower, if you’re using RAID 5, which is the cheapest way to be secure if you lose a drive (and I do too) you take a performance hit if you try to T-code to the same disks as the storage the media is on. Fast writes will help too. Less waiting for streaming to start and smoother playback. RAID 5 is three writes for every write.

I use .mkv for ripping, I’d recommend that and buying devices that support it, and transcode to the rest.