Need some help for a 1U lab server - ESXi

[thecoffeeguy]

Hey friends

Looking for some help on a server I am looking to add for my home lab.
What it will be running.

ESXi
Would like to get between 8-12 VM's running. It is running a mix of items, some windows, mostly Linux.
It will be mostly memory and IO intensive, not so much CPU just based on the applications i will be running.

i would prefer a 1U. Looking to add a wall rackmount to my office.
i would prefer it to be low power as it will be on 24/7.

I have looked at supermicro servers, 1U servers.
These two specifically:

Supermicro | Products | SuperServers | 1U | 5018A-FTN4

Supermicro | Products | SuperServers | 1U | 5018A-MHN4

Both low power, which is nice. Both have quad NIC's which will be very good for my networking setup. 6 SATA, which is nice as well.

Before i go spring for these servers, i thought i would ask for some help here before i do so.

Anyone have thoughts or suggestions on what I should consider?
I am open to suggestions and recommendations as well.

I appreciate it!

Cheers,

Coffee

EDIT: here is one i found on ebay. Not sure how good it is. Looking at the power, 500w...any idea if that will raise my electricity bill?

1U Server Supermicro X8DTU-F 2x Intel Xeon L5630 low power Quad Core 48GB RAM

 

[BlueLineSwinger]

If you're going with ESXi I'd recommend using VMware's HCL as a guide. FWIW, no Atom C2xxx systems, aside from some Ciscos, are listed as compatible with ESXi v6.0. They may work, but there may be issues. As for the L5630 system, if it (or the mainboard/networking/etc. it's based around) is still on the HCL I suspect it may not be for too much longer.

I'd be worried about noise from a 1u system, even for the Atoms. Maybe you can find a short-depth 2u case? Those will usually fit 80mm fans, which are usually enough to quietly cool a low-power system. You may also want to consider a small desktop case. The L5630 system might use relatively low-power CPUs, but there are two of them, so that'll increase consumption. I doubt it's quiet. And its case looks to be full-length, so it's probably not going to work with a wall-mount rack.

If you're going to go Atom, I'd go c2750 instead of c2758. The former supports turbo for a couple hundred extra MHz. Another possible gotcha is that, despite RAM specs that state they support 64 GB, the lack of 16 GB DDR3 UDIMMs means that the true number is 32 GB.

Were I building an ESXi system today for home I'd be looking very closely at the Xeon D1500-based systems. They may be a bit costly (partially because they're new and in somewhat limited supply), but they're very capable systems that should be supported for a long time to come. A recent Xeon E3 may also be worth looking into. The core count is lower, but the raw speed helps make up for it. And at idle they don't consume much power at all (e.g., my E3-1230v3/32 GB ESXi system idles at ~30 watts with a few guests powered on).

 

[thecoffeeguy]

If you're going with ESXi I'd recommend using VMware's HCL as a guide. FWIW, no Atom C2xxx systems, aside from some Ciscos, are listed as compatible with ESXi v6.0. They may work, but there may be issues. As for the L5630 system, if it (or the mainboard/networking/etc. it's based around) is still on the HCL I suspect it may not be for too much longer.

I'd be worried about noise from a 1u system, even for the Atoms. Maybe you can find a short-depth 2u case? Those will usually fit 80mm fans, which are usually enough to quietly cool a low-power system. You may also want to consider a small desktop case. The L5630 system might use relatively low-power CPUs, but there are two of them, so that'll increase consumption. I doubt it's quiet. And its case looks to be full-length, so it's probably not going to work with a wall-mount rack.

If you're going to go Atom, I'd go c2750 instead of c2758. The former supports turbo for a couple hundred extra MHz. Another possible gotcha is that, despite RAM specs that state they support 64 GB, the lack of 16 GB DDR3 UDIMMs means that the true number is 32 GB.

Were I building an ESXi system today for home I'd be looking very closely at the Xeon D1500-based systems. They may be a bit costly (partially because they're new and in somewhat limited supply), but they're very capable systems that should be supported for a long time to come. A recent Xeon E3 may also be worth looking into. The core count is lower, but the raw speed helps make up for it. And at idle they don't consume much power at all (e.g., my E3-1230v3/32 GB ESXi system idles at ~30 watts with a few guests powered on).

Hey there. Thanks for the great response.
At this point, i am open to all suggestions, whether 1U or desktop/build your own. My biggest item is power draw. My idea is to have more than one of these and want to be conscious of how much my electricity bill will be.

Do you have any recommendations on servers, prebuilt or build my own?
Lots of options out there and looking for help from other enthusiasts and technologists. I tend to be a perfectionist and i research stuff to death.

Much obliged.

Coffee

 

[vl1969]

If you want 1u, I just saw some one here selling a dell r 320. Very nice machine

 

[Patrick]

Yea another option is to try finding a E5-2670 V1 machine. Power is a bit higher and in 1U it might get a bit noisy depending on the cooling. The cool thing about them is you can pack in lots of ram and expansion cards. If you can fit a tower case, then you have a system that can be expanded immensely as well.

 

[markarr]

Hey friends

Looking for some help on a server I am looking to add for my home lab.
What it will be running.

ESXi
Would like to get between 8-12 VM's running. It is running a mix of items, some windows, mostly Linux.
It will be mostly memory and IO intensive, not so much CPU just based on the applications i will be running.

i would prefer a 1U. Looking to add a wall rackmount to my office.
i would prefer it to be low power as it will be on 24/7.

I have looked at supermicro servers, 1U servers.
These two specifically:

Supermicro | Products | SuperServers | 1U | 5018A-FTN4

Supermicro | Products | SuperServers | 1U | 5018A-MHN4

Both low power, which is nice. Both have quad NIC's which will be very good for my networking setup. 6 SATA, which is nice as well.

Before i go spring for these servers, i thought i would ask for some help here before i do so.

Anyone have thoughts or suggestions on what I should consider?
I am open to suggestions and recommendations as well.

I appreciate it!

Cheers,

Coffee

EDIT: here is one i found on ebay. Not sure how good it is. Looking at the power, 500w...any idea if that will raise my electricity bill?

1U Server Supermicro X8DTU-F 2x Intel Xeon L5630 low power Quad Core 48GB RAM

How much memory you thinking?

 

[thecoffeeguy]

Hey guys. Appreciate the feedback (sorry for the delay).
I am going back and forth right now, trying to make a decision (some good deals going on so I do not want to miss them).

Ideally, or my first thought would be to do a wall rackmount or small rackmount for 'cleanness'.

Here is my list so far:

Setup #1: Mobo: (up to 64gb memory supported)

Supermicro | Products | Motherboards | Xeon® Boards | X11SSi-LN4F

CPU option 1: Intel Xeon E3-1220 v5 SkyLake 3.0 GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1151 80W BX80662E31220V5 Server Processor - Newegg.com

Or...

mobo: LOTS of room for memory, 512gb

Supermicro | Products | Motherboards | Xeon® Boards | X10SRL-F

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

Pulling the trigger today.

My hopes here is for friends to tell me the positives and negatives for the above. I am not sure which chipset is the better one, so looking for expertise here.

This will strictly be for server based stuff, running between (hopefully) 8+ VM's.

Still need to pick out memory, chassis and storage. Would like to add an extra quad NIC in as well for networking options.


My thought was, i could go with the second option, knowing i could expand the memory (when memory gets cheaper) all the way up to 256...as well as could upgrade the CPU when it drops in price.

I would like to add a quad NIC of some sort so i can do networking configuration within ESXi.


I dont think I could go wrong with either, but the deciding factor I think is the form factor:

-do i want a 1U or a case?

That is my predicament right now.

My goal is to have as many VM's running as I can. I need a good CPU, lots of memory and FAST I/O

hopefully that sheds a bit more light.

thanks everyone!

Coffeee

 

[pricklypunter]

If you have the option, and it appears you do at this point, try and find a half decent 3-4U chassis, you can fit larger fans to improve cooling whilst keeping the noise level down. I would sidestep the Skylake setup this time round, you'll have plenty of oomph going with a Haswell/ SM X10 setup imo

 

[thecoffeeguy]

If you have the option, and it appears you do at this point, try and find a half decent 3-4U chassis, you can fit larger fans to improve cooling whilst keeping the noise level down. I would sidestep the Skylake setup this time round, you'll have plenty of oomph going with a Haswell/ SM X10 setup imo

Never thought of a 3U, might make sense.
what type of PSU should I look for? Trying to keep this as low power consumption as i can.

 

[Blinky 42]

For general VM use I would concur and stick to 1 gen back in hardware to save some $, and go with a larger case if you can fit it in. Far easier to keep it quiet and cool, plus with a 2U+ case you can add in a slew of networking cards, storage or other experiments down the line much easier. Easier to add additional NICs, SSD or drives down the road when you have 7 PCIe slots and 8 or more drive bays to work in.

I would avoid anything before the X9 series if you have the $ to spend and want to save power and noise.

 

[thecoffeeguy]

For general VM use I would concur and stick to 1 gen back in hardware to save some $, and go with a larger case if you can fit it in. Far easier to keep it quiet and cool, plus with a 2U+ case you can add in a slew of networking cards, storage or other experiments down the line much easier. Easier to add additional NICs, SSD or drives down the road when you have 7 PCIe slots and 8 or more drive bays to work in.

I would avoid anything before the X9 series if you have the $ to spend and want to save power and noise.

Really like the ideas and thoughts that have been suggested here.
I like the idea of holding back a gen on the CPU as i can upgrade later.

Any recommendations on a chassis? I was looking at istarusa and chenbro. Looking at 2U and 3U options. Like you said, room for expansion.

I think will be my route then. Go with the better board, but hold back a gen in the CPU, then pick a 2U or 3U case.

That sound about right?
And i would just ask, what type of chassis?

Much obliged.

Thanks for the help!

 

[thecoffeeguy]

Alright, so i bought this:

Supermicro | Products | Motherboards | Xeon® Boards | X10SRL-F

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


Good deal.
Now I was hoping for help finding a case and PSU. For the case, anything from a 2U to a 4U works. anything i should pay attention to?

Ordering some memory and SSD's and I should be good to go.
Pretty excited now.

 

[pricklypunter]

For cases, there are Norco's and Rosewill's a plenty, however I have always been partial to Chenbro and their kissing cousin IPC. Their chassis are really well put together and reasonable on the wallet. Here's a site with some ideas, have a look at the 20 & 24 bay 4U chassis, not too shabby for the money, and certainly easy on the eye, if aesthetics mean anything to you

1U, 2U, 3U, 4U (ITX, Micro-ATX, Extend ATX) (Rackmount Chassis) (IPC Server Case) (Power Supply) (Industry Rack mount Enclosures‎), (Riser Card) (Hot-Swap Cage Backplane) PLinkUSA / RackBuy