New Home VM Machine - Questions and Help Needed

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dandanio

Active Member
Oct 10, 2017
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Build’s Name: New VM Host
Operating System/ Storage Platform: ESXI 6.0
CPU: ?
Motherboard: ?
Chassis: SUPERMICRO SuperChassis CSE-512L-200B Black 1U Rackmount Server Case 200W, SUPERMICRO SuperChassis CSE-512L-200B Black 1U Rackmount Server Case 200W - Newegg.com
Drives: USB Stick? SATA DOM?
RAM: > 32GB ?
Add-in Cards: 10G would be nice, I have a PCIe 10G that I can reuse
Power Supply: ?
Other Bits: ?

Usage Profile: VM Host to replace aging Dell T110 II 1230 V2/32GB

Other information: Ideally it would fit the chassis and fit my rack (24U Middle Atlantic shallower depth). I do not have a budget, but I do not want to spend a gazillion dollars and I do not want it to be an overkill to run 10-12 VMs (mostly Linux, a few FreeBSD and 2 Windows 7 RDP targets). I think something like 64G with a decent processor in that case would be awesome.

What can you think of I should get?
 

dandanio

Active Member
Oct 10, 2017
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I do some transcoding (Security Video) for archival needs and it is slow, memory usage is about 22G and I am afraid the server will die one day. IO is done via 10G to a 10G ZFS pool over NFS, I feel like there is plenty IOs available.
 

dandanio

Active Member
Oct 10, 2017
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Those are like unobtainium... Plus I do not know how Xeon Ds work with virtualization...
 

Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
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Those are E's and depending on model they are available? At least in EU.

Xeon D usually is more cores, less frequency so maybe not the one for you
 

dandanio

Active Member
Oct 10, 2017
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Those are E's and depending on model they are available? At least in EU.

Xeon D usually is more cores, less frequency so maybe not the one for you
Yeah, you are right. Thanks for pointing this out! I mixed those 2 families up - my fileserver is running on D-1541.

As for the E-2100: like this mobo: X11SCM-F? $245 from the Egg. Are there better prices anywhere? pcpartspicker does not list them...

And for the CPU? Intel Xeon E-2136 is nowhere to be found. I would have to source it from somewhere?

64GB of RAM is probably the easiest to find though! :)

Any other recommendations?
 

BoredSysadmin

Not affiliated with Maxell
Mar 2, 2019
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On the subject of video transcoding, My GTX1070ti could do nearly 500fps from 1080p h264 to 720p h265 using NVEnc hardware acceleration.
I could be a bit behind the time, but I doubt that any Xeon cpu could do anything near that.
Granted GPU encoded videos aren't quite as good looking (if you're a pixel peeper), but should be plenty for security footage.

 

Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
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not sure thats going to fit his 1U chassis;)

Else I think E will be your best bet if you want high frequency (and don't need many cores and want small form factor).
D will be at around 2-2,5Ghz at similar price point (if at all)
 

BoredSysadmin

Not affiliated with Maxell
Mar 2, 2019
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not sure thats going to fit his 1U chassis;)

Else I think E will be your best bet if you want high frequency (and don't need many cores and want small form factor).
D will be at around 2-2,5Ghz at similar price point (if at all)
https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/1u-server-with-1-gpu.18937/
p2000 or p4000 would fit the bill as both come 1 slot cards
In that chassis only place for 1 external card though. Why not go with ebay server like Dell R630:
Dell PowerEdge R630 8B 2x PCI - Bare Bones 1U Rack Server, Motherboard, 750W PS 658759243355 | eBay
and video card:
NVIDIA Quadro P2000 5GB GDDR5 Graphics Card, 1-Slot (Dell/PNY 490-BDTN) 5397184052495 | eBay
 
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dandanio

Active Member
Oct 10, 2017
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Based on that graph, what do you guys think about a Xeon W in Micro ATX with 64 or 128G of ECC RAM in that case? How's this Xeon line doing with virtualization?
 

Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
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Based on that graph, what do you guys think about a Xeon W in Micro ATX with 64 or 128G of ECC RAM in that case? How's this Xeon line doing with virtualization?
W is the new E(3) it seems, so that was what I meant. Sorry, have not been following that line much in the last years.