Help me build a VMware home lab

[VR Bitman]

I did a search and indeed the Mellanox cards are also cheap, but I haven't found anything cheaper than the Brocade product (not in Europe anyway).
OK the new configuration is starting to look like this:

- motherboard ?
- CPU ?
- 2x 4GB or 1x 8GB DDR3 - around 35€
- IBM M5014 (LSI 9260-8i) - around 150€
- Brocade BR-1020 10Gbps FCoE CNA PCIe Dual Port Card - around 90€
- PSU Silverstone SST-ST30SF semi-fanless 300W - around 75€
- case Fractal Design Define R4 - around 100€

I'm starting to go over budget, but at least prices include shipping.
My requirements are not extremely high, though. I plan on moving a lot of data for a number of projects, but a 100-150MB/s throughput could be adequate, I think. I believe the Intel Celeron J9100 can provide that kind of performance, but seeing that the platform supports a truly limited number of PCIE lanes, I remain open to any suggestions.

 

[VR Bitman]

I have decided to try building it with the ASRock motherboard, so I went ahead and ordered everything except the case, which I won't be needing for my initial tests. I've replaced the SilverStone PSU with a cheaper Enermax unit (but not of lower quality). I've also replaced the Fractal Design case with a Cooler Master product, which is cheaper and designed for quiet operation. Total cost comes at little under 500€, perfect.
This is the final configuration:

- motherboard ASRock Q1900M w/ integrated Intel J9100 quadcore CPU 68€
- RAM modules 2x4GB DDR3 33,5€
- dedicated PCI-E RAID controller IBM M5014 (LSI 9260-8i) (with forced WB without BBU) 140€
- dedicated PCI-E CNA Brocade BR-1020 10Gbps FCoE dual-port 73€
- PSU Enermax NAXN 500W 42€
- 2x mini SAS to 4x SAS fanout cables 70€
- case Cooler Master Silencio 550 around 70€

 

[VR Bitman]

After some bad luck with the Q1900M motherboard, I have decided to switch to another model instead of asking for a replacement Q1900M. I went with the ASRock H81M. Among other advantages, this model requires less modifications / adapters as it has two x16 (mechanical) slots. Given that the CPU is not integrated, cost is slightly higher, but still within budget.

 

[VR Bitman]

Well, I finally got my NAS system up and running. I'm using Windows Server 2012 R2 as operating system and the components I have mentioned above.
This is how the array looks like:

These are the results of my initial tests:

I'm no storage expert, but the numbers seem OK to me. As I mentioned before, I require high sequential transfer speeds, as I will be working with very large files, and low IOPS.
For around 500€ of cost we have around 500MB/s of throughput (for sequential transfers). This means the value factor is about 1€/MB/s.
Well, I guess this is it. In terms of hardware, my personal laboratory is now complete.
What's left to do now is to install and configure the virtualization software.
I don't need any help with that, but without the pointers that you guys gave me I wouldn't have been able to get the project off the ground, so I want to thank you all once again. If it weren't for this incredible online community I wouldn't have been able to discover some of the lesser-known hardware manufacturers or the rare eBay deals. Thanks again.

If anyone is interested in reading more about this project, I will be posting details and pictures in the following days on my personal blog, starting here.

 

[mervincm]

let us know what the NAS performance is once you start accessing it accross the network. thanks for all the posts!

 

[VR Bitman]

let us know what the NAS performance is once you start accessing it accross the network. thanks for all the posts!

Performance seems to be good. I say "seems" because I am unable to test the Brocade BR-1020 CNA with the Mikrotik switch. Apparently the BR-1020 does not support Mikrotik transceivers and as soon as I connect one the event logs get populated with "unsupported SFP module" messages.
At the moment, I'm not sure what brand of inexpensive cables could work. Most certainly I cannot spend 3-digit figures for Brocade cables in a home lab context.

However I was able to perform some testing with the integrated gigabit Ethernet port on the motherboard, and I can definitely say that access times are very fast and the connection gets instantly saturated during file transfers.