Hardware Recommendations for Home Lab

[kjparenteau]

I use VMware vSphere 4.1 at my office and fairly familiar with how much of a load a Dell R620 with dual 6 core procs and 96GB RAM with a PowerVault MD3200i iSCSI storage can handle, but I am not so sure about the more cost effective approach for a home lab setup.  I understand that the free version limits me to a single proc and up to 32 gigs of ram which is plenty for my home.  So I was thinking of building more of a desktop level machine with directly attached storage and keeping it all in a single box.

I am ultimately looking to replace NAS and a separate test box and have a more robust piece of hardware and virtualize my entire server and storage needs.  I have come up with a basic shopping cart below with affordable and definitely not the best equipment, but I figure it would be a good bang for the buck and give me decent enough performance to run a couple Server 2008 machines, perhaps a Windows 7 test box, and maybe one or two small linux distros at the same time.  I will run RAID1 for the ESXi OS on the two smaller drives and the 4 large drives will be under RAID5 using that controller.

My question to all of you is, do you think this hardware is overkill?  Too little?  Or just right?  Let me know your thoughts and recommendations.  I am not looking for top end performance, but I would like to efficiently run those VM's and not overload the host, and be able to maintain decent file storage capabilities and transfer rates over the network.

Oh, also as a side note, I am pretty sure this hardware will allow for direct I/O of a GPU so that I can assign an Nvidia graphics card to a VM.  Let me know if this might be possible.

Thanks everyone in advance for your opinion!

Qty.	Product Description	Savings	Total Price
1	Xigmatek ASGARD PRO USB 3.0 CCC-AE37BS-U02 Black Steel + Aluminum and Aluminum Mesh Bezel ATX Mid To... Item #: N82E16811815014 Return Policy: Standard Return Policy	-$10.00 Instant	$59.99 $49.99
2	Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKX 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Dr... Item #: N82E16822136769 Return Policy: Standard Return Policy	-$10.00 Instant	$159.98 $139.98 ($69.99 each)
4	Seagate Barracuda ST3000DM001 3TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive Item #: N82E16822148844 Return Policy: Standard Return Policy	-$30.00 Instant	$719.96 $599.96 ($149.99 each)
2	Intel EXPI9301CTBLK 10/ 100/ 1000Mbps PCI-Express Network Adapter Item #: N82E16833106033 Return Policy: Standard Return Policy	-$20.00 Instant	$99.98 $59.98 ($29.99 each)
1	Thermaltake Black Widow W0319RU 850W ATX 12V v2.3, EPS 12V v2.91 CrossFire Certified 80 PLUS BRONZE ... Item #: N82E16817153106 Return Policy: Standard Return Policy	-$15.00 Instant	$144.99 $129.99
1	Intel S1200BTLR ATX Server Motherboard LGA 1155 DDR3 1600 Item #: N82E16813121620 Return Policy: Standard Return Policy		$229.99
1	Newegg Free CPU Magazine Coupon Item #: N82E16800996204 Return Policy: Limited Replacement Only Return Policy	-$24.99 Saving	$24.99 $0.00
1	Intel RAID SATA 8 internal port w/ 256MB cache memory PCI-E 2.0 x8 Controller Card (RT3WB080) Item #: N82E16816117214 Return Policy: Standard Return Policy	-$19.00 Instant	$449.99 $430.99
1	Newegg Free CPU Magazine Coupon Item #: N82E16800996204 Return Policy: Limited Replacement Only Return Policy	-$24.99 Saving	$24.99 $0.00
1	Kingston 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 ECC Registered Server Memory DR x4 Intel Model ... Item #: N82E16820239235 Return Policy: Memory Standard Return Policy		$242.99
1	Intel Xeon E3-1230 V2 Ivy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 69W Quad-Core Server Processor BX806... Item #: N82E16819117286 Return Policy: CPU Replacement Only Return Policy	-$5.00 Instant	$238.99 $233.99
Subtotal:			$2,117.86

[admin]

hi  kjparenteau,

Welcome to the communites.

you may go with Segate storage and intel motherbod with gigabyte NIC .

As you have done lot of R & D nothing more to specify.

"Life is never easy for those who dream"

[seetee]

The specs of what you have specified is pretty good - the Intel S1200BTLR (Beartooth Pass Revision) is an entry level single cpu serverboard.

If you anticipate running your lab 24x7, then this is a good solution.  If you plan to be turning the serverboard on and off, then a desktop solution is better - the serverboards are designed to run 24x7.  If you use a Serverboard, I'd recommend that you connect up to UPS.......if you have a desktop solution, a power spike protector is good enough.

If you are turning the machine on and off regularly, then one of the Intel Ivy Bridge Desktop boards with an i7 processor is probably less expensive it will yield the same result - for example I use the Intel DQ77MK - see http://communities.vmware.com/thread/403231?start=0&tstart=0.   4 x 8Gb DDR3 1600 modules are considerably less expensive than the ECC Registered - I have a couple of Hard Drives in this machine - one for ESXi; one for Windows 8 with Hyper-v and another as my "desktop".  I don't feel the need to RAID this simply because it is a lab.  However, one of the advantages of the DQ77MK is that it has SATA3 onboard (the Beartooth Pass doesn't).  So, i keep copies of the VM's i want (base builds) on an external USB3 Drive (WD My passport) - 15 mins to copy a 120Gb VM.

I'd recommend for the lab that you simply run esxi from a usb stick (2gb is sufficient for ESXi 5.1) - the Beartooth Pass has an internal usb type a receptable - the desktop boards don't have these.

The RAID card you have selected is good, but if it is a lab, 1 x RAID1 and 1 x RAID5 it is probably an overkill.  2 x 1 or 2 Terabyte 6G Western Digital Raid Edition for RAID1 would be ample.  Also, you could drop down your Power Supply requirements if you drop from 6 internal HDD's to 2.

The Intel NIC you've selected is based on the 82574L which is on the HCL - this is good because the second nic on the Beartooth Pass is not picked up by ESXi 5.0 or 5.1.

Does the Beartooth Pass takes Registered ECC memory?

Performance of the Beartooth Pass or DQ77MK is excellent - i have another Development ESXi which uses first generation nehalam processor and 24Gb with 1Tb RAID1 SATA 3G....and the DQ77MK is a rocket.

[kjparenteau]

Seetee, thank you for your GREAT response!  I definitely plan on running this server 24/7 as it will be my file storage, remote access to home, FTP, web server, test environment, you name it.  Definitely want to stick with Server gear if I can.  Right now I have multiple machines handling all of that this and figured running a single box with enough storage and horespower to handle my current needs and beyond some will be a much better solution for long term.

One question I did have that wasn't answered was in regards to Direct I/O.  That setup that I listed, would it allow for me to add in a GPU (that I already have) and utilize Direct I/O and pass through the GPU to a VM so I can increase the video performance capabilities of that VM?

The large drives is a must due to the file storage requirements.  I have a lot of media that needs to be stored and right now it is spread across multiple drives and multiple machines.  The large drives in RAID5 will allow me to combine storage into a single location with hardware redundancy.  $600 in HDD's for 9TB of redundant storage isn't bad if you ask me.  I appreciate the input on the NIC cards!  I didn't realize the second NIC wouldn't be picked up.

You mentioned running from a USB drive.  I do agree this is a good solution as that is how I have run FreeNAS and other platforms in the past, however wouldn't the performance of the host itself and also fault tolerance be improved by running the host OS on RAID1 with 2 HDD's?  If the USB fails, or a single HDD fails, then I lose the host, whereas RAID1 config should allow me to replace the bad drive before I lose the host correct?

Again thank you so much for your feedback!  It was very helpful!

[seetee]

Not too sure about the GPU - there are a few threads about this in the forum.

There is a workaround for the second nic - see http://communities.vmware.com/message/2077254#2077254

Not sure if it makes a difference in terms of host performance running from usb or RAID...but RAID is clearly better from a risk perspective than usb.  I've always kept the esxi os distinct from the datastores and given esxi 5.1 only needs a 2Gb usb stick...there are some backup usb options discussed in the forum.