Hello STH Forum!
A while ago I got some feedback here regarding a home server I initially wanted to use Windows Storage Spaces for. I took a bit of a detour and went with unRAID, but the feedback/help I received here was phenomenal so I'm reaching out to you guys again for help regarding a new project, and that is the development of an server platform that runs on some slow/cheap/old hardware, but I can use for testing/development.
In short, I would like to construct a server platform that I can run unRAID on as a development/test server (while keeping my main unRAID server untouched), as well as testing the development of virtualized servers with the use of KVM (perhaps Xen). I don't need this platform to be future-proof in any way shape or form, I don't need it to be fast, and hell, I don't even need it to be particularly reliable, these are all the things I am willing to sacrifice in order to save on cost.
Some features that I would like to have:
Vt-d (for virtualization) as well as IOMMU so I can passthrough PCI devices
IPMI would be nice so I can run the unit headless
room for a PCI card (for that PCI passthrough) (likely for a controller)
hardware is friendly to KVM
I really am new to the virutalization world, and I'm not sure what kind of older hardware works well with with it. I don't have much in the way of older hardware laying around I can use, so I guess this is the opportunity to build something from scratch. It also may work out best to buy a whole server unit already assembled (that is older), but I really don't know at this point.
Anyway, any input would be greatly appreciated.
A while ago I got some feedback here regarding a home server I initially wanted to use Windows Storage Spaces for. I took a bit of a detour and went with unRAID, but the feedback/help I received here was phenomenal so I'm reaching out to you guys again for help regarding a new project, and that is the development of an server platform that runs on some slow/cheap/old hardware, but I can use for testing/development.
In short, I would like to construct a server platform that I can run unRAID on as a development/test server (while keeping my main unRAID server untouched), as well as testing the development of virtualized servers with the use of KVM (perhaps Xen). I don't need this platform to be future-proof in any way shape or form, I don't need it to be fast, and hell, I don't even need it to be particularly reliable, these are all the things I am willing to sacrifice in order to save on cost.
Some features that I would like to have:
Vt-d (for virtualization) as well as IOMMU so I can passthrough PCI devices
IPMI would be nice so I can run the unit headless
room for a PCI card (for that PCI passthrough) (likely for a controller)
hardware is friendly to KVM
I really am new to the virutalization world, and I'm not sure what kind of older hardware works well with with it. I don't have much in the way of older hardware laying around I can use, so I guess this is the opportunity to build something from scratch. It also may work out best to buy a whole server unit already assembled (that is older), but I really don't know at this point.
Anyway, any input would be greatly appreciated.