ESX Test Lab $999 Less?

[azn2kew]

Does anyone has any good hardware components where I can use for ESX Test Lab for home less then $999. I would like at least following in place:

1. AMD Opteron (dual core) 2GHz +

2. 4GB of RAM +

3. 2 x (320GB SATA) drive

4. CD/DVD (cheap)

5. ASUS motherboard if possible (on board raid is great if not I'll use Adaptec) must support 8GB RAM if possible.

6. ATX case or anything works plus power supply

Any information should be great thanks folks.

[Texiwill]

Hello,

You should read through the Systems HCL and the IO HCL before proceeding: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_io_guide.pdf

Your configuration just will not work. SATA is not supported by ESX. In general white boxes do not work very well.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky, author of the forthcoming 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', publishing January 2008, (c) 2008 Pearson Education.

[Nibor]

ASUS P5M2/SAS

http://www.asus.com.tw/products4.aspx?l1=9&l2=39&l3=352&model=1422&modelmenu=1

• Dual Broadcom NICs supported for ESX

• Onboard RAID controller supported for ESX

• Onboard VGA

I'm using this board myself and it works perfectly

[zyx100 · Accepted solution]

there is a good article about cheap ESX:

[azn2kew]

Nibor,

I've seen people using this ASUS board and sounds great but I want to know about types of hard drive that could be use and CPU that works good with this. Thanks.

[Nibor]

Intel CPU's obviously, I run a C2D6600 on it.

CPU compatibility checker

Search Cpu using Server > Socket775 >P5M2/SAS

You can connect SATA drives to the LSI SAS controller and create a vmfs datastore out of it.