Originally Posted by
MadMike261
I personally run a home brew ESXi box and I will give you some observations.
Purchased this box about 2 years ago now.
- Keep in mind licensing, free ESXi License only supports 4 cores if I remember correctly.
- 8 GB RAM is LOW. I personally run 32GB because it is the max my mobo supports and 16GB was to little for my needs. Upgraded from 16 to 32 about 9 months ago. DDR3 8GB sticks are about the same price per GB as 4GB sticks today
- I use non ECC RAM because my mobo + cpu dont support it and I didnt want to spend the extra money to get it. For a play / testing rig usually not needed to get ECC
- After RAM, Disk IOPS is probably your biggest limitation. Rebooting several VM's can be a pain, or a coffee break :P depending on your view.
- Latest ESXi release installs a GPT partition by default. Not all bios support boot from GPT. Google knows how to install with MBR, I forgot :P
- I rarely max out my CPU, usually my Disks wont be able to keep up.
I purchased my box with the goal of expanding my general knowledge of Windows Server and to have an environment to play around with.
Besides that it also functions as my NAS box with Hardware passthrough of the raid controller to a VM.
Permanent VM's:
- Openindiana + ZFS (this is the NAS box with the RAID Controller assigned to it) - 8GB RAM assigned
- OpenVPN Appliance (VPN Server for remote access) - 512MB RAM assigned
- Windows Server 2008R2 (Download box and remote workstation, my laptop sucks and my desktop needs to crunch when I am not @home :P) - 4GB RAM Assigned
Including overhead this results in about 13-13,5GB RAM used. These VM's are always on unless I need the RAM :P
Hardware:
- i5 2400 (4 core, no HT, 2nd generation i5)
- 32GB RAM
- Intel Q67 chipset mobo (DQ67OWB3)
- Datastores 1x 128GB SSD Crucial C300 (boot), 2 separate 10k WD Velociraptors (came from my gaming rig when I replace them with SSD's, slower than new 7.2k drives I think)
- SASUC8I Inter Raid controller (Flashed with LSI IT firmware to function as HBA), with 6x 2TB Samsung F4 - passed through directly to NAS VM
- 600W Coolermaster Gold PSU
- Fractal Design Define R3 case
Your Mobo and CPU need to support hardware passthrough of PCI devices.
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