I would be inclined to say 'Standard' ... Standard includes, in the single license, the ability to run 2012 directly on the hardware for management purposes, and TWO virtual instances within that physical instance ... so, basically, you can run two servers for the price of one (just remember the license does not allow you to do anything besides Hyper-V management in the physical/host instance.  You could do your development stuff in one virtual machine and the media stuff on the other (or run only the dev VM and use the physical/host for media stuff ... or if you have multiple licenses, install as many VMs as you have licenses for and/or need). Virtualization is the future (correction, it is already the present standard for server deployment), so if the idea is to stay abreast and versed in current trends and technologies, then do as much virtualization as possible - at least as much as is feasible, given your projects (it is also important to recognize the differences and limitations of each). I might be inclined to recommend you put your 4x750GB disks in a RAID 10, as you will get better overall performance from a RAID 10 than a RAID 5 (RAID 5 has good read performance but bad write performance (bad for some database use and probably for recording media (NVR)) and RAID 10 has good read and write performance). Essentials is not only more limited, it is less flexible.  For example: 
Hi Guys, I was wondering if someone can help me out choosing setup for my home server (software wise). I just upgraded my PE860 to PE2950 III. On PE860 I had Windows Server 2012 Essential but since my school is giving me all MS software for free I was thinking about going with Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard.  PE 2950 Config: 1. 2x 2.33 GHz Quad Xeon E54102. 16GB RAM3. Perc 6/I with RAID 1 - 2 x 146GB 15k and RAID 5 - 4 x 750GB, 2 slot still empty   Primary I will be using server as: - Fileserver, Media Storage - SQL Server 2012 Business Intelligence  - Visual Studio 2013 Pro - IIS - in near future as CCTV NVR 1. Should I go with Essential or Standard version since it's free anyway? 2. Should I setup some virtualization, separate for each activity? Thank you
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