SharePoint 2010 Standalone vs Farm Installation

Here, I just post the various good points regarding SharePoint 2010 Standalone vs Farm Installation.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3342429/in-sharepoint-installation-from-the-two-options-standalone-or-serverfarm-which

• Standalone will install SQL Express on your machine and use it for your SharePoint instance.
• Server Farm will install SharePoint on existing SQL Server instance if you already have one on either your machine or somewhere else on the network.

So it depends whether you already have SQL Server installed on your machine or not. A standalone installation is actually what it says. It will install as a standalone product without any other product requirement.

I prefer server farm installation because I rather have full SQL Server installed and used by other apps as well. I find SQL Express installation a waste of resources when I already have a full-fledged server.

SQL Express is limited to 4GB. If you think your development environment may exceed that, then go for the Server Farm. As for me, we already have a full farm for staging and production, so I get no additional benefit from running a server farm installation in dev. If you're already running a full SQL instance on your box, you might consider Server Farm just to avoid having another instance of SQL Server on the box.

Just as a matter of interest. Don’t use Standalone for ANY production environment as it limits you in that you cannot add any more WFEs or scale out at all.

If you have a SQL Server license (Not express), then always choose Farm.

http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/252852-sharepoint-stand-alone-or-farm-help

Question: I want to install SharePoint Foundation 2010 on a 2008R2 server in my LAN. My ultimate goal is to allow web traffic to hit my website (hosted internally behind a DMZ within my LAN) and once on the website, click on a link to take them to my SharePoint web portal located on a 2008R2 server within my LAN. Once they gain access to the SharePoint portal, they will be able to retrieve information from a SQL database located on a third server within my LAN using the SharePoint web portal.

My question is will this be a 3tier environment consisting of a web server, app server (SharePoint server) and a database server (sql) and would I need to install SharePoint as a standalone or a farm environment?

Answer 1:

Farm, absolutely.

If you do standalone, not only does it use the internal SQL Express but it installs it to c:\program files\blah\blah\blah.

When you choose Farm on the first page, you get to the second and you can choose the full farm, w/ external SQL.

Or you can pick the standalone there (or some verbiage) option, which uses SQL Express but allows you to specify the file locations.

Answer 2:

I've never done this exact setup before but, from what I've picked up, for a public facing SharePoint install, you would want to have a SharePoint Web Front End (WFE) that publishes content to the user, a SharePoint Back End that would pull the data from SQL, then of course the SQL box. This setup allows the WFE to be available while having the real data secured. I've been forces to do this with all on a standalone SharePoint install, WFE and SQL on the same box. It was never hacked and our network was never compromised, but doing this creates a constant worry. It is not recommended. The Farm install is the option you want. Also make sure you create a SQL Alias and connect SharePoint to the SQL Alias instead of pointing it directly to the SQL server. This will save major headaches in the future if you are need to migrate/upgrade/change hardware.

Answer 3:

If you are going to have SQL on a separate server then the front end or likely to have more than one front end then choose farm.

Or even if you want to control SharePoint more than just install it with all the defaults then farm.

Basically Farm unless you don't really care.

Answer 4:

Farm

A farm can consist of a single machine, and so "Farm" is always the configuration MS recommends. If you choose stand-alone, you can never go back and change to "Farm," and you would then be permanently unable to add additional machines (such as a separate WFE, SQL etc.)

Always select the Farm option even if you are never planning on having more than one server.

To upgrade from a standalone install to a Farm install is a Major PITA, and i use the term "upgrade" loosely as it's really a uninstall reinstall and restore procedure.

http://www.networksteve.com/enterprise/topic.php/Standalone_vs_Farm_setup/?TopicId=50662&Posts=6

When we are setting up SharePoint Server?
We have two options:
Setup as Farm
And
Setup as Standalone
What are the real differences and impact on it will have?

Standalone will install SQL Express on your machine and use it for your SharePoint instance. No other SP machines can join its standalone not a farm.

Farm will install SharePoint on existing SQL Server
instance if you already have one on either your machine or somewhere else on the network. You can join other machines to this SP installation.

More details I found on a site:
When installing SharePoint Server 2010, there are primarily three setup options. Following is a short description of each type of installation:

1. Standalone Installation:

- SQL Server 2008 Express Edition is the database type automatically installed (instead of Windows Internal Database/SQL Server 2005 Embedded Edition used in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0).

- This is almost a “one-click” installation; no questions are asked during setup or during Post Setup Configuration Wizard (PSConfig)

- A Web application and team site collection are automatically created in the newly created farm. The search service is started automatically.

-  Cannot add servers to join a farm.

- When the installation is complete, the browser opens taking you to a newly created site collection.     

- Installer is not prompted for farm passphrase, it is automatically generated.

2. Server Farm Standalone

- Same as Basic installation, except it allows changing installation directory location.

3. Server Farm Complete
                - SQL Server 2005 SP2/SQL Server 2008 is the database type, not installed by setup.

- Administrator can pick whether or not to create a site and the site template to use.

- Prompted for farm passphrase during PSConfig phase of installation.