Small hypervisor

[pedda pedal]

Hi guys, i'm looking to buy and setup an offsite server that will be running my backups and a couple of VMs.
I've looked at the Asus P10S-I and maybe a E3-1230V5 but that seems kind of overkill for my purposes?

My plans as of right now is to run a hypervisor (proxmox, or xenserver) with pfsense, debian and a windows 7 VM.

Any sugggestions? The smaller the better!

I have not set a budget yet but i imagine it shouldn't be that expensive for my purposes.

 

[Peanuthead]

I would go with something like an older Supermicro x9 setup or 1366 setup with an L series. Super cheap, IPMI, reg ECC RAM (for the 1366). I presume if it's offsite then the power consumption is a non-issue but in case you still have low power systems. You could even do something simple like a J1900 ITX board. You never mentioned what the disk sub-system will be/how the disks will be connected.

 

[pedda pedal]

I would go with something like an older Supermicro x9 setup or 1366 setup with an L series. Super cheap, IPMI, reg ECC RAM (for the 1366). I presume if it's offsite then the power consumption is a non-issue but in case you still have low power systems. You could even do something simple like a J1900 ITX board. You never mentioned what the disk sub-system will be/how the disks will be connected.

I definitely need IPMI but i think an ATX setup is abit overkill and abit too big size-wise.
Are there any good SoC mini itx motherboards that has support for xenserver/proxmox/esxi?
There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of mini itx 1151 server boards around except for that asus one in my first post?

Disk setup will probobly be a raid 6 with four 8tb drives, so i was thinking maybe this chassi Supermicro | Products | SuperServers | Mini-ATX | 5028A-TN4 are there any other potential candidates? Mini itx with atleast four hot swappable bays.

 

[Drewy]

What about an atom c2750 ? Proxmox runs fine, itx boards can be had with ipmi and they support EEC ram. Certainly not going to set any benchmark records by for a couple of small vm's it may be fine.
I have one running 2 Windows server 2012 and one pfsense and they run fine.

 

[fractal]

The 5028A-TN4 is not a bad machine if you are comfortable with an atom. Another choice would be the HP Microserver. I have a G7 and it's fine for a NAS but kinda weak on processing power. You can get the G8 with a celeron, a pentium or a xeon. They are very popular in the "4 cold swapable bay" market. They aren't hot swap though.

 

[pedda pedal]

What about an atom c2750 ? Proxmox runs fine, itx boards can be had with ipmi and they support EEC ram. Certainly not going to set any benchmark records by for a couple of small vm's it may be fine.
I have one running 2 Windows server 2012 and one pfsense and they run fine.

Interesting, how about vt-d and vt-x? Would it be possible to passthrough a HBA to one of the VMs? Can't find anything of relevance on the supermicro site.

 

[pedda pedal]

The 5028A-TN4 is not a bad machine if you are comfortable with an atom. Another choice would be the HP Microserver. I have a G7 and it's fine for a NAS but kinda weak on processing power. You can get the G8 with a celeron, a pentium or a xeon. They are very popular in the "4 cold swapable bay" market. They aren't hot swap though.

I've glanced at the HP Microservers but they seem to be very propriarity? Licences for IPMI ,raid and certain features, overheat issues etc.

 

[Keljian]

Interesting, how about vt-d and vt-x? Would it be possible to passthrough a HBA to one of the VMs? Can't find anything of relevance on the supermicro site.

Atoms don't yet have vt-d. That said, the way to get around that is put storage in dom0 - eg ZFS on Linux on proxmox for storage, then everything else in a VM

 

[Drewy]

Sure, no vt-d so no passthru. You did say budget

 

[pyro_]

Or use hyper-v. It will allow you to passthrough individual drives to a VM regardless of vt-d or vt-x. Also nice cause you don't have to give the hba to the vm, you can split the drives on it over multiple vm's if you want

 

[pedda pedal]

Atoms don't yet have vt-d. That said, the way to get around that is put storage in dom0 - eg ZFS on Linux on proxmox for storage, then everything else in a VM

I guess that wouldn't be that big of a deal to just put the storage on the proxmox itself, point taken.

 

[pedda pedal]

Atom c2750 or c2758? Avaton vs Rangley, am i right when i say Avaton would fit best for virtualization (higher clock speed) and Rangley for Network appliances?

 

[Keljian]

Atom c2750 or c2758? Avaton vs Rangley, am i right when i say Avaton would fit best for virtualization (higher clock speed) and Rangley for Network appliances?

Correct

 

[pedda pedal]

Correct

Great!
I stumbled upon this article while browsing the web Spot The Denverton: Atom C3000 Silicon On Display seems like Avoton´s successor is soon to be revealed, interesting stuff on the horizon for sure.