We're a 'not quite huge' company that is too large to use MSDE for the BES database, but not big enough to warrant a dedicated SQL Server for the BES server. So we're putting a our new BES server DB on a remote SQL 2005 server that is shared by other applications.

One of the requirements is that the service account accessing the SQL server has the serveradmin role (not just for the install... ongoing as well). I get beat up every time we get audited that I have service accounts that have the serveradmin role.

Anybody know the impact of NOT giving the serveradmin role? What do I lose? And what do i break, if anything?

So how many users do you have?

120+ users

I use SQL2005 Express on the same machine as the BES - and it's on a Pentium III server with half those users and it keeps up quiet nicely.