Windows 2008 R2: resource / performance logging and alerting

Question

A stand-alone Windows 2008 R2 Server (not part of an AD-environment) shall be logging its resources (CPU, memory, disk, network, etc.) and trigger alerts once one or multiple resources exceed a critical threshold (critical isn't well-defined here).

So far I found perfmon.exe as one solution. Given that I have no experience with this tool, I have multiple questions:

1. Would this be a good approach to enable logging of basic resources:

   • Data Collector Sets > User Defined > New > Data Collector Set
   • Create from template > System Performance > Start this Collector Set now

2. Does it collect data automatically now (is it "turned on"?), even after reboots?

3. Can I safely let it stay turned on without flooding the disk with log files (does it implement some sort of log-rotation)?

4. How can I trigger alerts once a resource is nearly depleted?