Hardware recommendation for a student.

[CatHat]

Hi!

I'm a student currently doing my second year on the master of engineering program. I'm trying to find some none-server hardware on which to run ESXI 4 (due to server hardware-costs) but so far iv come up mostly empty handed. I'm currently running 3 physical computers which i want to combine to one using virtualization to both bring down the electricity bill and reduce heat in my garderobe. They will together serve at most 20 simultaneously users.

The following OS will be running:

• Windows 2008

• Opensolaris

• Pfsense (freebds 7.1)

• Ubuntu server 9.10

• + more for educational/testing purposes.

I want to give opensolaris direct disk access to my storage disks so that i can utilize the full potential of zfs directly and wont have to use VMFS in the bottom.

These are my foughts on hardware with cost and electricity in focus:

• CPU: AMD/intel dose not matter only that they support AMD-V or Intel VT-x and are quad cores.

• Memory: going to start out with 8 GB ECC memory. (will add more later, its cheap nowadays)

• Nic: Intel PRO/1000 MT Dual adapter (already have 4x of these and iv tested them with both esxi 3.5 and 4)

• PSU: 80 plus or better, brand is of less importance.

Now the problem is the motherboard and the I/O controller, what i am looking for is a motherboard where the on-board I/O controller works with Esxi and it runs stable. During the Christmas break i have been testing Esxi 4 on a new Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P with a phenom X4 cpu and an intel pro 1000 nic. The motherboard have the AMD SB750 I/O controller and the 790X chipset. The sata drives where detected, the onboard nic is realtek so it wasn't detected and booting esxi takes ages (~5 min) and when its booted it suddenly stops responding on network traffic when i´m connecting with the vSphere client. I wasn't able to get it stable on that hardware.

I've read on vmware that the support is better for intel chipsets then amd (esxi HCL does not mention amd chipset), so i might give that a try if any one can recommend some hardware :-). I have already checked ultimatewhitebox.com (and submitted some hardware) but the entries there are mostly of outdated hardware.

My other solutions are XenServer (it worked on above hardware) or Microsoft Hyper-V (works with a wide range of hardware). Both are free (i get the license for windows 2008 through the university) but i would rather run ESXI because i want to learn using the leading software on todays market.

Sorry for the wall of text guys but iv been resarching hardware for esxi for some time now and for a last try i thought i would try the community for some thoughts and help

Happy new year!

[J1mbo]

Have you considered an HP ML115G5 - quad-core Opteron 1354 CPU - which will take 8GB RAM and cost less than £200 for the basic model (you'd need to add the RAM and disk space)?

Please award points to any useful answer.

[CatHat]

I checked the ML115G5 out, here in Sweden you can get the basic model for 540 USD. But the fact remains that you get less performance for your money getting one of these then building your own customized machine (which you can upgrade, change chassi on etc) and it only has 4x 3.5" slots. The new machine chassi will have to have +8 slots or more for hdds since it will serve partly as an fileserver and therefor its easier to pick my parts according to my needs instead of buying a standard HP/dell server :).

The only benefit i can see is that this would run esxi smoothly (?) , but as above stated it does not fulfill my requirements to a good cost. If there isn't any not-server targeted motherboard out there that can run esxi without problems i guess i will start with trying hyper-v. I can easily put together a machine that out-performs the ML115G5 with non-server hardware at a similar cost, but the fact remains that it would probably only be able to run hyper-v and maybe xenserver but not esxi.

I know ESXI isn't intended for the non-server market so what i want to do might not be possible

[dnetz]

Hi,

It might be tricky to find parts that you can be sure works with ESXi 4, but there's a big market for pre-owned/refurbished servers that are probably still on the HCL and won't set you back more than maybe 4-5000 SEK. Just google for "begagnade servrar" and you'll find lots of companies and private ads for pre-owned machines. You might even be able to call around to some of the companies around you and ask if they're selling. A lot of companies seem to just put aside their old machines even if they're still working and store them until they're too old for anything but the junk yard.

Hope it helps!

[mikepodoherty]

I second this recommendation, I've purchased a steep discounts refurbished Dell servers for this type of effort.

Also, I don't know if this group exists in Sweden but in the US there is an organization called freecycle - uses Yahoo Groups - I've picked up a couple of Dell Tower servers off this group for no cost.

Mike

[juchestyle]

Hey HatCat,

When I first got involved in Virtualization I went out and bought expensive hardware to learn on. Today what I would do instead is buy the latest version of workstation that allows you to run ESX. Then you can use your desktop or buy one that will allow you to have a dual purpose. When I turned on the dedicated harware, my electric bill climbed.

So invest in workstation instead!

Matthew

[DSeaman]

You can NOT run ESXi inside of workstation and run 64-bit VMs. You can of course run 64-bit VMs natively in Workstation. The Asus P6T v2 Deluxe works perfectly with ESXi and has supported I/O controllers. YOu will need to get a cheap Intel/1000 card though.

[CatHat]

Giving you guys an update on the situation.

I was reading over at ultimatewhitebox when i stumbled upon the information that esxi wont work when C1E is enabled in BIOS. So i went over to my friend with the Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P and tried installing ESXi 4.0 again and now it works like a charm!

Im still testing it out tho but if it continues to works satisfiable il buy the following hardware to run esxi on:

• AMD Athlon II X4 630 AM3

• ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO, Socket-AM3

• Crucial DDR3 1333MHz 4GB REG/ECC

This will cost ~556 USD with a nice chassi, quite nice price for the performance.

I will update later when i have installed some VM's and see how that works.

Thanks so far

[DSTAVERT]

4GB is not enough RAM for doing much.

[juchestyle]

Yes you can run ESXi and ESX inside of workstation and run vms inside. That is how I just finished writing a book about vsphere. Quick Reference book.

Thank you,

Matthew

[CatHat]

I know 4Gb isnt that much but i will add more later, its just that i cant afford all the hardware at once

: I have been using/testing Virtualbox, ms virtual PC 2007, VMWare workstation and vmware server for some time now and what i want to do is to take the next step which is esxi/xenserver/hyper-v for me. My way into virtualization was through virtual box and from there i learned much about virtualization; i have been running virtual-machines for the last year or so. I agree to what you saying, starting with workstation or similar software is a good way to get into virtualization

[DSTAVERT]

Just remember that you don't have many slots to add RAM so keep it mind when you order. Terrible when you need to throw away ram to expand.

[CatHat]

Since im not using server hardware 16 GB will be the limit (4x4 GB memory sticks), but that will be more then enough for my needs

[juchestyle]

I only run 8 gigs on my setup and I have plenty room to run AD, VC, 2 esx, 2esxi and an embedded 2003 in one or two of them. 64 bit rocks!

As for Virtual box, I am not a fan of it. It seems so much less stable and lacking features when compared to even the free version of vmware server.

[DSeaman]

Only 32-bit VMs, not 64-bit. This means it's impossible to run Server 2008 R2 as a nested VM inside ESXi and Workstation.