Hello All,
My work has recently decided to virtualize much of our on-site infrastructure with VMware ESXi 5 and vSphere, and I'd like to build a server at my home to set up a virtual lap to play around with so I can be more prepared to take on virtualization responsibilites as they are handed to me. This way I can both sharpen my Active Directory configuration and administration skills and break anything I want or cause a warp core meltdown without getting fired.
On a $1,500-$2,000 budget I'd like to run approximately:
Three domain controllers
Three or four member servers
Five or six clients (XP, 7, ![]()
Motherboard: VT-x and VT-d compatible
CPU: VT-x and VT-d compatible (AMD or Intel)
I've got a quote from Dell for a PowerEdge T110 II for $1,350
Intel Xeon E3-1220 3.10 GHz, 8M Cache, Turbo, Quad Core/4T
16GB Memory (2x8GB), 1333MHz, Dual Ranked UDIMM
There is not hard drive included in this quote because I'm considering a RAID 10 solid state setup - they're pretty cheap on TigerDirect and NewEgg (about $150-200 for 160 GB drives). I was told by a few people that because I'm not going into production I would not need ECC RAM. It was suggested to go for a Fatal1ty motherboard and start building around that. Should I go with Dell's offer and add in some solid state drives? Or would a SATA 6.0 Gb/s be good enough?
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Alexander
SATA in a RAID would be fast enough for your lab give you more flexibility from the increased storage capacity. In your lab, you most likely won't be able to generate enough I/O to tap out the SATA speeds. Keep in mind that it would probably be a lot cheaper to go with larger RAID arrays of SATA than with SAS and especially with Solid State. The more disks in your array, the faster it will be so I would get a bunch of "smallish" SATA drives and just use a RAID 5 then put your money into RAM, although the 16 GB will probably be sufficient for your lab.
Additionally, I would check out http://www.dell.com/outlet/. You'll get more bang for your buck. Whatever you buy, make sure to check the HCL.
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php
Since you are just getting started with VMWare, you might not have learned yet that astronimically huge amounts of RAM is your key spec. Disk speed and processor cores counts are important, but you won't be able to get anything done without lots of RAM. It's always what you run out of first. If you are going to be designing the new environment, keep in mind that an ESX host can host a huge # of VMs if you have the RAM to do it.
Just as an example, I typically spec with a minimum of 128 GB of RAM but prefer 256 GB and depending on loads will have as many as 128 VMs (low load machines) on one host. Granted, these are large environments but you get the idea. Just try to balance host count where you have plenty of redundancy but err on the side of larger hosts. In most situations the whole point is consolidation with redundancy not the other way around. It's a lot cheaper in the long run too!
Thanks for the quick reply, JedwardsUSVA. I think I'll take your advice and go overkill on the RAM!
