Desktop & ESXi Build Review

[BinaryData]

 

You will need some good NICs in your ESXi server. Also, don't bother with a hardware firewall, pfSense is far better than that TPlink and perfectly suited to your ESXi box.

For reference, below is my ESXi server.

As for the components you've listed. Definitely avoid the Crucial MX series. Awful firmware and a lot of problems with them.

https://www.google.co.uk/#q=crucial+mx100+bsod

 

 

I'd go with Supermicro instead of MSI motherboards.

Hard disks, yes, as others have stated, avoid Seagate and go WD for HDD, and Samsung 850 (Pro) or SM951 for SSD.

 

ESXi 6.0 box:

1x Lian Li PC-V2130 case (holds 15x 3.5" + 4x SSDs) - PC-V2130B

1x Supermicro X10DRi-T motherboard (DP and 2x Intel10GbE) - MBD-X10DRi-T

1x Antec HCP1300 Platinum PSU (Platinum rated and quiet!) - HCP1300 Platinum

2x Crucial 32GB (16GB x2) CL15 DDR4-2133 ECC 1.2V - CT2C16G4RFD4213

2x Intel Xeon E5-2620V3 6 Core CPU - BX80644E52620V3

2x Noctua NH-U12DX i4 heatsink/fan (Narrow ILM) - NH-U12DX i4

1x LSI 8 Port 6Gbps MegaRAID SAS 9261-8i with BBU (from previous server) - LSI00212

1x LSI 8 Port 6Gbps MegaRAID SAS 9271-8i (from previous server) - LSI00331

1x Noctua NF-A4x10 FLX 40mm fan (for LSI RAID card) - NF-A4x10 FLX

1x Samsung 850 Pro 512GB SSD

2x Intel I350-T4V2 4-port Ethernet Server Adapter (from previous servers) - I350T4V2BLK

1x Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate G3 32GB USB 3.0 (ESXi boot disk) - DTU30G3/32GB

3x Lian Li HD-07A hard drive trays - HD-07A

1x Akasa Siliconized Rubber Fan Pins - 20 Pack (to silence rear fan) - AK-MX003

2x Powercool 20cm Male molex 4pin to 4x SATA Power Braided Cable - Black - M4XSATA

2x Noctua NF-S12A PWM Case Fan 120 mm (to replace noisy Lian Li rear case fans) - NF-S12A

1x Akasa AK-CBUB19-10BK USB 3.0 to USB 2.0 Adapter Cable - AK-CBUB19-10BK

1x Startech 6 inch USB A Female to USB Motherboard 4-Pin Header USB 2.0 Cable (to plug in ESXi boot disk inside case) - USBMBADAPT

 

I was going to get the NICs after I first got it built. When it comes to NICs, I'm fairly lost. I'm behind the times on things, and even BudMan is pulling hair out some times. I looked at pfSense, and their website doesn't seem to do anything. Maybe it's just the network here at work.

Is this an example of what you were referring to;

http://store.pfsense.org/SG2220/

 

 

 

 

I bought over 250 of those MX100s for work and not one issue so far. Been a year or so. After the 840 EVO issues, not sure I'd recommend Samsung. I have an 840 Pro and like it but we bought many 840 EVOs and do see slowness in those after a while.

 

Ironically, the 840 and 850 pro have been deemed the #1, at least as far as Google Searches and SSD Benchmark tests are concerned.

If you think you need massively powerful hardware for virtualisation, you are somewhat missing the point of virtualisation.  My 'server' spends most of its time running at about 200Mhz of utlilisation.  It has a dual core processor and comfortably will run about 10 virtual machines - the roadblock I hit with running more is not so much processor, but RAM (I only have 16GB).

 

My 'server' has a processor that isn't much more powerful than the sort of Atom processors you find in modern tablets.

 

Ultimately it is your money, to spend as you wish.... seems like you have plenty of it to be buying this for a lab...

 

Mm.. I was going to run a number of different things. A few of them would be learning, but some would have live applications on them.

OS1: Server 2008 - Educational

OS2: Server 2012 - Eduacational

OS3: RHEL5.x+ - Educational

OS4: RHEL7.x - Game Host Testing (Friend and I are working on converting a game server from Windows to Linux)

OS5: Windows 7

OS6: Windows 8.x

OS7: Windows 10.x

OS8: RHEL7 - Database/Educational/PHP/HTML/CSS etc..

OS1 - 4, & 8 would be online and running 24/7, the other ones would be more for Educational. Things that could be shut down.

only thing i would add on what all the other guys have said is i would have dual or triple NIC's and break the vmkern out onto one of its own

 

That's the plan boss, i was going to look at grabbing one or two dual or triple port NICs for it. As for the vmkern, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

My 2cents. I have Intel 4690s, quad core at 3.2GHZ (upto 3.9Ghz) using 65watt (and yes thats not all the time) Running my Server2012 with 6 Hyper-V VMs and is also my Steam InHome Streaming Server (with the help of my GTX750Ti Video Card). I have a 256GB SSD for VM - OS (10-30gb each) and HD Drive for Data VHDX. Have 16GB of memory. Recommand you get MEMORY and Storage Space. SSD is great but for Lab work get a HD. i7 will not help with anything so i think the i5 is your best bet. And nothing everything needs lots of memory and cpu. Most of mine are single core with 1-2GB memory, and some of my linux are just 512MB (TImeMachine). Also visit Reddit.com/r/homelab some great help there.

 IF the motherboard supports all the xeon features.

 

I guess it comes down to what you are doing. Most of my VMs are doing number but having the power of quad core for Steam InHome Streaming helps me alot.

Well, I do a lot of video encoding, and storing. Much like a lot of people in this day and age, I do pirate music/movies/tv-shows. I was looking at building a storage server specifically to host all my data, but Budman pointed out that it wouldn't be necessary. I have a massive media collection. I have 2 types of media, FLAC / MP3 (320kbps), I download tv-shows that I'm interested in, and things my family would enjoy. We don't really watch movies, but my brother loves my media collection. I wanted my Media Server to serve as an encoding platform, as well as a massive storage system. From what BudMan and sc302 have told me, Windows VMs should have 3GB of memory, while Linux/Unix can roll 1 - 2GB and still function properly. I'll have 32GB of Memory for my ESX server.

 

Anyways, I'm looking at refurbished servers for a temporary solution.

I'll swap the MX100 out of my build, and make a note of it.

[+BudMan MVC]

Dude pull my hair out over nics?  More like your nonstop questions

 

I just answered your PM that ts140 for $369 looks like a good start if you ask me, some memory, quad nic and ssd and your rocking your first esxi box for under $750 that I am sure will be sweet!!  Sent you some links to parts that should work in the PM.

 

intel server quad port $100, 16GB mem for $150 and Samsung 250 850 evo for $120 and think your screaming..

 

That memory stuff was from sc302, I run my storage windows vm with 2GB and it serves up files just fine.. my linux vm has 256MB, my unifi controller vm ubuntu 14.04 is 512, etc..  You don't need 32GB starting out.. 16 is more than enough.. And if you wanted to save a couple of bucks get a 4GB stick and add to that ts140 4GB it comes with and your out the gate to get playing.

 

I have 6 vms running - and I only hav 8GB of ram total.. they are running 24/7/365..  I just updated the w10 vm to build 74 so you can see the memory usage of that on the graph..

 

 

You can always update to more mem if have issue.. You don't need to max everything out at the get go..

 

Keep in mind you can over subscribe as well..  Most of the time your vms are not going to be using all the ram you allocated to them so if your vms add up to more memory than you really have its not going to bring everything down, etc.  While sure we would all want to have 512GB of ram for our VMs on our play/home/lab esxi boxes..  You can have lots of fun/use with lots less..

[BinaryData]

Dude pull my hair out over nics?  More like your nonstop questions

 

I just answered your PM that ts140 for $369 looks like a good start if you ask me, some memory, quad nic and ssd and your rocking your first esxi box for under $750 that I am sure will be sweet!!  Sent you some links to parts that should work in the PM.

 

intel server quad port $100, 16GB mem for $150 and Samsung 250 850 evo for $120 and think your screaming..

 

What a boss.. My reference to hair pulling was in direction of my non-stop questions.

[sc302 Veteran]

I like memory and drive space.  I go up to 32...but that is me.  If you can't afford it, go with 8 or 12 or even 16.

[BinaryData]

I like memory and drive space.  I go up to 32...but that is me.  If you can't afford it, go with 8 or 12 or even 16.

 

I'll start with 16GB, but push it to 32GB in due time. I want to gauge how the system will respond to only having 16GB.

[Intersect]

I thnk what we could do on neowin is a guiid on how to setup a ESXi box for a VM test lab as there seems to be a lot of threads getting made here by people who dont quite understand how virtualiation works.

mabey budman and hagis can help out with this.

[BinaryData]

I thnk what we could do on neowin is a guiid on how to setup a ESXi box for a VM test lab as there seems to be a lot of threads getting made here by people who dont quite understand how virtualiation works.

mabey budman and hagis can help out with this.

 

BudMan started one I believe, it just never got pinned and was pushed down the list. I originally suggested this to him. I believe it was a "Post your Build" topic. I wouldn't mind a virtualization topic, explaining thoroughly how to go about it, suggested builds. i.e. dollar ranges, what you need to primarily build for. It'd be Hyper-V too. I'll be doing a similar topic for Water Cooling, because that's what my PC will have on it.

[Squuiid]

BinaryData, pfSense is a software firewall. You just need to allocate 2 nics from your VMware box and you have a full featured and very powerful firewall.

Here's the download link.

https://www.pfsense.org/download/

There are plenty of install guides on the web but be aware that the latest version 2.2 should use ESXi vnics of type vmxnet3 and not E1000. You also don't need to install VMware tools. Other than that, most guides out there will help.

[BinaryData]

BinaryData, pfSense is a software firewall. You just need to allocate 2 nics from your VMware box and you have a full featured and very powerful firewall.

Here's the download link.

https://www.pfsense.org/download/

There are plenty of install guides on the web but be aware that the latest version 2.2 should use ESXi vnics of type vmxnet3 and not E1000. You also don't need to install VMware tools. Other than that, most guides out there will help.

 

I would ask sc302 or budman