New PC/LAB - Which is better? Or better suggestion?

Morning All. Long story short I need to update my local home PC to be able to do virtualization, and use it for GNS3 and Plex.

Which one of these is a better system or do you have a better suggestion? Trying to keep the system itself under $400 and I will get the RAM upgraded greatly and HDDs after that.

http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkServer-70A4000HUX-i3-4130-Computer/dp/B00F6EK9J2
or
Amazon.com : Lenovo ThinkServer TS140 70A4001LUX 5U Tower Server (3.2 GHz Intel Xeon E3-1225 v3 Processor, 4 GB ECC RAM, No HDD, DVD-ROM, No OS) Black : Computer Servers : Computers & Accessories

Or if there is a better suggestion? I not a huge VM person so I not studying for it besides just labbing for fun that is why I dont need anything insane that can run 12 VMs or anything like that.

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Comments

stryder144

Well, to be honest, I'd go for the first one. It has Intel VTx built-in, dual core w/HyperThreading, 1 TB of HDD and 8 GB of RAM. That should be sufficient for your needs. If you find your needs expanding, you can go up to 32 GB of RAM for that processor and you can add a WD Black2 or 256 GB SSD. All it needs right now is an OS and it would be good-to-go.

gorebrush

FWIW - I built my own box, it's an i5 4770S, 32GB RAM. Runs ESX and I've got a hardware RAID card with 4x2TB disks hanging off it.

I run a Windows 2012 VM for plex that has the RAID card shared with it (passthrough) so the disks are natively accessed.

I run my CSR's on the same box too and other VM's for other training. I love it, best box I'd bought for long term ESX needs, but my i7 desktop is handy too

kohr-ah

Oh nice !

I have 4TB of drives to throw j to the new box and will migrate my current 128SSD in as well. The idea was if it came with 8GB ram to put 16 more in it and stop there for a total of 24.

I'd like to keep it around 700 total so of you have any suggestions I am open.