Another VMware home lab

[Neil_Koch]

Well I'm finally do it! I've completed the course (vSphere 5; Install, Configure, Manage), I've booked the exam (VCP5), and now I'm setting up a VMware home lab.

I've borrowed some ideas from Sammy Bogaert's excellent blog

The system I'm building will have the following hardware;

1 x Intel Core i7-3770 BX80637i73770 Processor - Quad Core, 8MB L3 Cache, 3.40GHz (3.90GHz Max Turbo), Socket H2 (LGA1155), 77W, Fan, Retail

1 x Corsair XMS3 CMX32GX3M4A1333C9 32GB Memory Module - DDR3, 1333MHz, CL9, DIMM

1 x Crucial CT128M4SSD2 m4 2.5" Solid State Drive - 128GB, SATA III 6Gb/s

1 x Shuttle XPC SH67H3 Barebone PC - No CPU, Intel H67 chipset, Socket 1155, No RAM, Gigabit LAN, USB 3.0, No OS

1 x WD Green WD20EARX Hard Drive - 2TB, 3.5" SATA, 64MB Cache

1 x Lite-On IHAS124-04 Internal DVD Writer DVD+R 24X, DVD-R 24X, DVD+RW 8X, DVD-RW 6X, DVD+R DL 8X, SATA (OEM)

1 x Thermaltake AC0014 Hard Drive Bay Converter - 3.5" to SSD/2.5" Converter

I will be configuring it with the following;

Windows 7, VMware Workstation 9 and running various nested VM's with ESXi, vCenter, etc.

So with all this being said, anyone have any tips that would recommend for this type of setup.

Very much looking forward the challenge in the coming month!

Cheers!

[JoshuaNipa · Accepted solution]

Im pretty sure your setup will have enough juice to fully support a virtualized Lab, we almost have the same setup, except I had "only" 24gb of ram,lol, I was able to to try everything including FT (though you would have to modify the vmx files). I was virtualizing 3 esx machines,a vcenter appliance, an AD controller, a freenas VM (or openfiler) for SAN iSCSI storage and everything was still smooth as butter (had 4 vms within the 3 esx machines running windows 2003 server)

[Neil_Koch]

There are a few things to note as I work through setting up this lab;

Probably the main one is reduce your virtual memory in Windows 7 if you have this much RAM!

The first thing I noticed was a massive swap created by default on both partitions that I created. C and D had a massive amount of wasted space? I initially thought this might relate to a fault SSD drive. After some quick research I found this wasn't the case.

Apply the settings as per the screen shot.

[amithb]

You mean just 1 module of 32GB RAM. That mean it will be single channel memory. If your shuttle PC has 4 DIMMS, its better to make use of all the DIMMs to get better performance by making use of multi channel memory. if 32GB is the maximum support of your board, u can use 4 x 8 memory modules. that would give better performance that one 32GB memory module.

Just a suggestion. Anyone any thoughts on it?

[amithb]

One more thought is that, if your planning to dedicate this new machine only for the vsphere lab, then its better to vitualize it completely. What I mean is to install a ESXi as the host OS, instead of Windows 7. In that way u can have a better lab.

[nielse]

Any specific reason to run a 2TB WD Green disk? If you don't need local storage just go with a smaller one and replace the green disk with a black one... Greens aren't made for servers, they are "ecodisks" which are slow as hell even tho they claim otherwise

[Neil_Koch]

Well completely agree with you on this note. I loaded 2008 R2 Web edition trial and experience a load time that well, put me to sleep.

In answer to your question though... I'm using the WD Green drive for additional storage due to the fact that I'll be using the lab pc also for other uses other than just VMware.

[Neil_Koch]

Thanks for your reply. I wasn't specific enough in the parts list. I actually have 4 x 8GB DDR3 1333mhz modules. For me using work station to run this lab is the very suitable as it allows me to take advantage of using the system for other uses too. Plus when I'm using up 22GB of memory I can still easily use Windows 7 with no lags! It really does perform very well!

Cheers

[Neil_Koch]

[UPDATE]

I now have my VCP as of October, 2012!

The great thing about having this lab is I'm now using it for other certifications too! So not only was uselful for passing the VCP but also doing some other Microsoft certifications.

[JoseG1957]

Congrats!  I'm new to VM community, your equipment list is impressive, may I ask how much cash the equipment came to?  I am on a budget and will try to cut corners any way I can.  thx

[Neil_Koch]

Hi there, welcome to the community! It came to about $CAD1200 including taxes