ESXI6 Whitebox Suggestions

MutataMutata Member Posts: 176
in Virtualization
Just curious what you guys would suggest from experience?

10-15 VMs, a few will be somewhat high load.

No budget really.

Thanks!
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  • jibbajabbajibbajabba Member Posts: 4,317 ■■■■■■■■□□
    Dell T5500 .... Can be picked up for next to nothing on eBay...

    Supports up to 72GB of RAM and Dual CPU (Xeon 55xx / 56xx).
    My own knowledge base made public: http://open902.com :p
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  • jibbajabbajibbajabba Member Posts: 4,317 ■■■■■■■■□□
    Just finished my lab based on the said T5500s

    New Lab | Open902
    My own knowledge base made public: http://open902.com :p
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  • ts10012ts10012 Registered Users Posts: 1 ■□□□□□□□□□
    jibbajabba wrote: »
    Just finished my lab based on the said T5500s

    New Lab | Open902

    I am interested in building something similar as a replacement for my existing (old) VM infrastructure.

    I have a few questions, if you do not mind.

    It seems that T5500 is not on the compatibility list (since it's a workstation, I guess). Any hacks needed to run ESXi 6 Free on it, or all hardware will be recognized properly?

    Also, how quiet is it? I can try to replace the fans with the third-party ones, if really needed.

    Thank you.
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  • XavorXavor Member Posts: 161
    jibbajabba wrote: »
    Just finished my lab based on the said T5500s

    New Lab | Open902

    I couldn't help but chuckle at the little monitor/tv you have on your 3 T5500s.


    Also look at used last generation servers on ebay for a couple hundred bucks.
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  • srabieesrabiee Member Posts: 1,231 ■■■■■■■■□□
    How about for those that refuse to do Ebay? Any good suggestions on equipment with a full warranty? Or DIY builds?
    WGU Progress: Master of Science - Information Technology Management (Start Date: February 1, 2015)
    Completed: LYT2, TFT2, JIT2, MCT2, LZT2, SJT2 (17 CU's)
    Required: FXT2, MAT2, MBT2, C391, C392 (13 CU's)

    Bachelor of Science - Information Technology Network Design & Management (WGU - Completed August 2014)
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  • kj0kj0 Member Posts: 767
    Super micro. They have some awesome SoC motherboards for about a grand, but you just need to Add Ram and drives. We got one for work. $1500 was 32Gb SODIMM, and a ATOM 8 core. The SoC you can get with Xeon and 10Gbe.
    2017 Goals: VCP6-DCV | VCIX
    Blog: https://readysetvirtual.wordpress.com
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  • jibbajabbajibbajabba Member Posts: 4,317 ■■■■■■■■□□
    srabiee wrote: »
    How about for those that refuse to do Ebay? Any good suggestions on equipment with a full warranty? Or DIY builds?

    If you were in the UK then I could help. I paid less than $500 for each T5500 with Dual E5520 and 24GB of Ram
    Xavor wrote: »
    I couldn't help but chuckle at the little monitor/tv you have on your 3 T5500s.


    Also look at used last generation servers on ebay for a couple hundred bucks.

    The small screen is lovely. 7" touch screen lol but the touch screen isn't usable unless you run Windows. Anyway, it is just to monitor my Microserver boot if I am in the garage rather than connected via IPMI.

    Needs to be up before the hosts as it hosts the LUN with my vCenter and takes aaaaages to boot. Really needs a reinstall.
    My own knowledge base made public: http://open902.com :p
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  • srabieesrabiee Member Posts: 1,231 ■■■■■■■■□□
    kj0 wrote: »
    Super micro. They have some awesome SoC motherboards for about a grand, but you just need to Add Ram and drives. We got one for work. $1500 was 32Gb SODIMM, and a ATOM 8 core. The SoC you can get with Xeon and 10Gbe.

    Thanks for this info. I had never researched Atom processors or SoC solutions before. How is the speed and performance of this processor for the purposes of virtualization and labbing for the MCSE and VCP-DCV?

    We purchased some Dell OptiPlex thin clients at work a few years ago that had Atom processors. The performance of the local OS was painfully slow and everyone hated them. Never gave Atom a second thought after that experience.
    WGU Progress: Master of Science - Information Technology Management (Start Date: February 1, 2015)
    Completed: LYT2, TFT2, JIT2, MCT2, LZT2, SJT2 (17 CU's)
    Required: FXT2, MAT2, MBT2, C391, C392 (13 CU's)

    Bachelor of Science - Information Technology Network Design & Management (WGU - Completed August 2014)
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  • XavorXavor Member Posts: 161
    @srabiee

    My lab:

    2x
    SuperMicro x10slm-f
    Xeon E3-1230 V3
    4 port Intel Ethernet nics

    2 HP 1810-24 switches

    DIY Freenas storage

    The Ethernet cards are ebay, the rest is all new. Your cost per host will be around $900-1k depending on the season. You can also build from the gaming component market if the prices are lower, but I wanted the IPMI.

    If the HP Microservers are on sale, those are good options.

    You can lab for the MCSE:Server and VCP-DCV with VMware workstation trial. Any machine with 16-32 GB RAM that can do virtualization with a 500GB HDD would be a starter. I wanted to mess with the cabling and headaches associated with the gear. Processing isn't the issue with learning this unless you're running loads. RAM is what will limit your build options.
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  • dave330idave330i Member Posts: 2,091 ■■■■■■■■■■
    I'm super cheap and I only do VMware, so I just use Hands on Lab.
    2018 Certification Goals: Maybe VMware Sales Cert
    "Simplify, then add lightness" -Colin Chapman
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