Virtualization Server

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

matkisson

Member
Apr 11, 2017
32
7
8
36
So, being as my Intel S2600CP decided to stop working (RIP old faithful) ... its time to be out with the old and in with the .... well ... maybe not as old. So I just ordered a new board and am planning out my primary server. Currently the server will be housed in a Supermicro CSE-216 with the SAS2-216EB Backplane and 1 daughter card. In addition, the chassis was modified to add 2 additional 2.5" drives to the rear of the chassis. OK, it was modified to fit an external 3.5" bay. I have E5-2660 and E5-2667 processors on hand and cant decide which to use. I will be going to v2 processors but have no intention at the moment. Currently I also have a single 10Gb NIC. No changing that until I can get a better switch with more SFP+ for the rest of my servers (Currently Quanta LB4M).

So, moving forward I would like to use the server for my High-Speed NAS as well as a virtualization server. Being as I have the license I plan to use Server 2016 Datacenter as the base OS. Capacity is not as important as performance and reliability. I will configure the server to do a nightly dump to my cold-storage server. Power efficiency is also a consideration with all additional components.

My questions are as follows:
1. What drives and configuration would you all recommend?
2. E5-2660 or E5-2667? Bonus: Just how bad would an E5-2650L v2 impact the overall server (I know it will be bad)
3. Future upgrades (Switch, backplane, etc)?