We used Vault this year running on a custom built server. It is running Windows Server 2008 with an i7 quad core and a 1 TB HDD.
You have to download the
Vault Server because the installation of Inventor only gives you the Vault Client.
It's fairly easy to set up but some things get complicated. Vault uses IIS to communicate through the network. We forwarded port 80 on our router to open Vault up to people outside of our warehouse. Because it's an IP address with no website associated with it, I was able to connect to vault from anywhere: my house, school, library, anywhere with Internet.
Vault was extremely useful for keeping track of who's working on a part by checking in/ checking out parts or assemblies. It saves old versions and each time you make a change, it shows up in a log in its properties. It is slightly frustrating sometimes because if you drop connection while working it would frequently crash. But assuming you were hard wired or simply had a solid connection, it's great to have, especially when working in a team.