ESXi & ASUS RS100/120 ?

[Diddoo]

Does anyone have any experience with ESXi and Asus RS100/120 variants. Serioulsy looking at the RS120 E5 if it works.

I know the RS160's are on the HCL but my budget doesnt stretch that far.

I would definately be adding a supported HCL Raid Card at some stage as I beleive the ICH7R controller is not ESXi compatible/supported for RAID.

Planning at this stagge on Ubuntu server for network/storage access and a few windows VM for 2-3 users.

How dependable are ESX based Storage drives if the machine fails and i need to re-enable on new hardware etc?

Would a separate SAN be better (raid 10) and leave just the VM OS's on the server itself? Cant afford to loose the data. Ideally i would like to use drives off ann addon card and share theses out via the ubuntu VM... but i dont want it getting too messy if things go wrong.

Hope someone can make sense of all this.

[DSTAVERT]

Items not on the HCL are hit and miss. HP, Dell, IBM, etc have new server models which means that the previous models are available at bargain prices. I believe you can probably find a fully supported, full featured server for about the same money you would spend for the ASUS.

[Diddoo]

Thanks for the reply.

I'll see what i can find. Everything i saw loacally from the big brands was a bit more pricey. Double checking won't hurt

Do you have any advice re: the raid setup? with esxi i am stating to think it may be better to use local storage just for VM's and backups and have actual file/data storage on a networked Storage device (SAN etc.)

[DSTAVERT]

What is your budget and I'll find some links for you.

Since you will have one server local will be fine.

[Diddoo]

Hi again,

budget is sub $2000 Australian Dollars.

I can get the asus 120 with 4 x 500Gb drives for about $1900 delivered to my door if that gives any guides. (i'd be more likly to change these to 1 x 200 + 3 x1TB.

essentially i want the 4 drive for storage. space.. just a little annoyed at the assus lack of genuine raid support. an extra raid card will take the price up to about 2300 i'd think... considering a freenas VM to create a raid 1 storage out of 2 of the 1 TB drives.

possible config would be:

1 drive for core ESXi install (200Gb Unless i can use the same drive fo VM storage.... is performance affected using VM's form the esxi boot drive? )

1 drive to store vm (Freenas, linux server, windows os for remote user, extras for testing etc.(1Tb)

2 drives in Freenas Raid 1 setup (1Tb drive each)

I had a look at the Dell R200/300 but they seem lacking in the drive areas. cant afford an extra storage box as well.

Definately interested to see what you can come up with. Never had to buy a server before.

[Diddoo]

Well i had a chat to DELL

for about the 2.5K i can justify i can get an R200 with 2 300Gb SAS hard drives

basically the only major is hardware RAID rather than the software on the ASUS and the ASUS has more built in drive capacity whish i need over the high speed of the SAS.

The DELL also has less memory for the same money.

Am I not speaking the the right Dell rep? I must say that in 2 days they still haven't managed to send me a quote.

I've used Dell Servers before and found them pretty reliable and service has been great.... decisions decisions.