Hey all.
As the title states, looking for a few suggestions to finish out my build for a new ESXi home lab.
Here is what I have so far (purchased):
The chassis: Norco 3U fits up to 12x10 mobo (purposely bought a big chassis for noise and cooling
Here is the mobo:
SuperMicro:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813182927
Here is the CPU:
Intel Xeon E5-2603 v3 Haswell 1.6 GHz 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 15MB L3 Cache LGA 2011-3 85W BX80644E52603V3 Server Processor - Newegg.com
Going to add 32-64gb of memory to begin with.
Originally, I was going to go with maybe one or two SSD's but I started to think. "You know, I have a pretty sweet mobo, maybe I should explore other options and ask others for recommendations."
That in mind, I wanted to ask:
-storage. I was going to grab one or two SATA or SSD drives for local storage. Then I started to think it would be nice to have some fast storage with IO so my VM's dont lag. I started to think about RAID, maybe even a RAID card. Perhaps even convert one or two of the external 5.25" outer bays to hot-swap bays.
-NIC's. Comes with 2 by default, but maybe add another dual NIC or quad NIC card. Gives me more options to play and setup with in ESXi (vlans, storage networks, DMZ etc.).
Storage is the one i keep coming back to.
My question to friends here is, anything i should consider or keep in mind? I can put a lot of storage in this case (dont have to, but it can hold a lot.) What about RAID?
Lastly, PSU. Probably my weakest area is picking out a proper PSU unit.
What should I be looking for? I know some brands by name, but for a server build like this, this is where i would ask the expertise of others to steer me in the right direction.
Pretty excited for the build. My mobo and CPU arrived today. Case is next week. Hoping to get the memory, PSU and drives ordered this week so i can build it all next week.
I appreciate all the feedback everyone.
looking forward to it
cheers,
coffee
As the title states, looking for a few suggestions to finish out my build for a new ESXi home lab.
Here is what I have so far (purchased):
The chassis: Norco 3U fits up to 12x10 mobo (purposely bought a big chassis for noise and cooling
Here is the mobo:
SuperMicro:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813182927
Here is the CPU:
Intel Xeon E5-2603 v3 Haswell 1.6 GHz 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 15MB L3 Cache LGA 2011-3 85W BX80644E52603V3 Server Processor - Newegg.com
Going to add 32-64gb of memory to begin with.
Originally, I was going to go with maybe one or two SSD's but I started to think. "You know, I have a pretty sweet mobo, maybe I should explore other options and ask others for recommendations."
That in mind, I wanted to ask:
-storage. I was going to grab one or two SATA or SSD drives for local storage. Then I started to think it would be nice to have some fast storage with IO so my VM's dont lag. I started to think about RAID, maybe even a RAID card. Perhaps even convert one or two of the external 5.25" outer bays to hot-swap bays.
-NIC's. Comes with 2 by default, but maybe add another dual NIC or quad NIC card. Gives me more options to play and setup with in ESXi (vlans, storage networks, DMZ etc.).
Storage is the one i keep coming back to.
My question to friends here is, anything i should consider or keep in mind? I can put a lot of storage in this case (dont have to, but it can hold a lot.) What about RAID?
Lastly, PSU. Probably my weakest area is picking out a proper PSU unit.
What should I be looking for? I know some brands by name, but for a server build like this, this is where i would ask the expertise of others to steer me in the right direction.
Pretty excited for the build. My mobo and CPU arrived today. Case is next week. Hoping to get the memory, PSU and drives ordered this week so i can build it all next week.
I appreciate all the feedback everyone.
looking forward to it
cheers,
coffee
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