Cheapest 64-bit Hardware for vSphere?

[dougdavis22]

Seeing as vSphere is only going to run on 64-bit CPUs, anyone got any idea what the cheapest supported H/W is at the moment that you could get it to run on? I'm not talking about for production, merely for testing/playing in a home lab environment so I'm assuming there are some desktops out there that would do the trick.

Cheers,

D.

[azn2kew]

Cheapest is to get a working windows workstation running on a multi cores x64 bit supported CPU than you can run VI 4.0 on a VMware Workstation 6.5 if not get a decent hardware on newegg.com and you will satisfy with your learning need. I'm running on P5M2/SAS with Intel Quad Q6600 + 8GB of RAM and 2TB of disks but you can get a cheaper one make sure it has VT enable and x64 bit for vSphere.

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Regards,

Stefan Nguyen

VMware vExpert 2009

iGeek Systems Inc.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

[Smoggy]

for small home labs I have seen a lot of folks using the HP ML110 and ML115's with a lot of success....search on google for ESX whitebox

obviously this kind of setup is strictly non-production / personal use.

cheers

Lee

[squirrelking]

Simon over at TechHead posted a great article regarding your question:

Just make sure you get one with a 64bit cpu..

VMware VAC - Premier

[Dave_Mishchenko]

It part it will depend on what you want to do in your lab? If it's a 64 bit processor and work with 3.5 then you should be OK to run 4.0 on it (see the whitebox list at www.vm-help.com). If you want to use Direct I/O or FT then you'll need chipsets or CPUs that support those features. Likewise for 64 bit guest OSes you'll need Intel VT or AMD-V.

[daviddavis]

Hi All,

I have a "whitebox" server (with a MSI 7350 motherboard and Intel Quad core CPU) that runs vSphere fine (no SCSI card required).

The only feature that I have found, so far, that doesn't work is DirectPath.

I read that DirectPath requires one of the new Intel Nehalem CPU's (Xen 5500's).

My question is - what is the least expensive option that will also run DirectPath? One of these HP 110's or 115s? Do they run Directpath too?

Thank you,

David Davis

vExpert, VCP, CCIE

Author of Train Signal's VMware ESX Server videos training series

Personal website:[http://www.VMwareVideos.com]

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Directpath requires chipset (not CPU) support. You'll want to find something that supports VT-d (Direct I/O). Like Intel VT (or specifically VT-x) you'll want to look for an option to enable in the BIOS of the host.