MotherBoard

ssampier

ESXi 3 is nice that it doesn't require too much hardware. And the basic version is free.

A couple of folks have had good success with Dell workstation class equipment, assuming you don't mind searching for old Dells.

You can also run ESXI inside of Workstation. I would expect virtualizing virtual would be a performance drain, but for playing, go for it

VMware Virtual Infrastructure Test Environment - The Dell TechCenter

MentholMoose

erpadmin wrote: »

Personally, I would never skimp on ECC memory, compared to non-ECC memory, but again, for your purposes...MAYBE you can get away with non-ECC. But I wouldn't do it on a practice server...or any server really...

Just curious about your (or anyone's) experience with ECC, and the real world benefits. I've been using ECC in most of my server-grade lab machines, and I recently had some go bad. It showed exactly the same symptoms as non-ECC RAM I've seen go bad: file corruption and BSODs. What does the ECC price premium really buy you, other than in cases where it's required by a motherboard?

TheShadow

MentholMoose wrote: »

Just curious about your (or anyone's) experience with ECC, and the real world benefits. I've been using ECC in most of my server-grade lab machines, and I recently had some go bad. It showed exactly the same symptoms as non-ECC RAM I've seen go bad: file corruption and BSODs. What does the ECC price premium really buy you, other than in cases where it's required by a motherboard?

Hmm that seems strange it should not corrupt anything that is the purpose unless some BIOS settings are turned off. ECC should silently correct any single bit error in a memory word and find 99.999 percent of all multiple bit errors in a single word causing the system to halt. Our regular systems go on their merry way. The average 4GB systems that is actively being used should see about one memory error per day just from alpha particle bombardment. Now that the solar winds are on the increase maybe more. Hospital, accounting, military, utilities all have ECC or are supposed to because that crust of an icon or undecoded bit of cheesy email text that regular users deal with could be a disaster to them.

Basically every day is the dawn of a new error.

Many many moons ago in a different life ECC circuits were some of my mainframe design duties.

As such I have ECC in my 3 home rack servers just in case the zombies attack. Uhh no wait that is what the chain saw is for. oh well

RobertKaucher

TheShadow wrote: »

As such I have ECC in my 3 home rack servers just in case the zombies attack. Uhh no wait that is what the chain saw is for. oh well

Will they stand around while you refill it's tank?

Better have a nice backup....

Zombie Tools: Accessories for the Apocalypse | Makers of Zombie-Killing Weapons | Missoula, Montana

Bl8ckr0uter

That harvester looks incredibly bad ass lol. And they are full tang too? Sweet find! Perfect for when the police state takes over lol .

ssampier

I am pretty sure your ECC RAM could come in handy in the apocalypse. I guess you could sell it to the invading alien robots or something.

We never did get rid of those nuclear weapons....

RobertKaucher wrote: »

Will they stand around while you refill it's tank?

Better have a nice backup....

Zombie Tools: Accessories for the Apocalypse | Makers of Zombie-Killing Weapons | Missoula, Montana

What if we just think they're zombies? What if they are vampires instead (hint: I Am Legend)?

erpadmin

MentholMoose wrote: »

Just curious about your (or anyone's) experience with ECC, and the real world benefits. I've been using ECC in most of my server-grade lab machines, and I recently had some go bad. It showed exactly the same symptoms as non-ECC RAM I've seen go bad: file corruption and BSODs. What does the ECC price premium really buy you, other than in cases where it's required by a motherboard?

I know on my production machines at work I have not had any issue with the RAM itself. (We use HP Proliants G3s and G4s and a couple of G2s)...all are about to be upgraded to (380) G6 models. We've had hard drives die, of course, but I can't remember any issue I had with the RAM. I do know we use ECC RAM too.

I am just about to start labbing at home. Assuming my RAM doesn't arrive DOA, I will have something better to report to you after some time much later. I just didn't want to chance having non-ECC RAM in the middle of some exercise. Also, I will have SQL Server database VMs MUCH later (probably after I earn my MCITP:EA). So I do want to make sure I have some error correcting RAM on that front as well.

exampasser

Here is an AMD server mobo that doesn't look bad, it features 2 on-board intel NIC's. It also supports both ECC and non-ECC RAM:
Newegg.com - SUPERMICRO MBD-H8SGL-F-O Socket G34 AMD SR5650 ATX AMD Opteron 6100 series 8/12-Core ready Server Motherboard

The only problem is that it's not on the ESXi Whitebox HCL although I have read about people using this or near exact model boards for ESXi. Newegg does not seem to have any single socket G34 boards that are on the HCL.

Here is an 8-core that doesn't look too bad for under $300:
Newegg.com - AMD Opteron 6128 Magny-Cours 2.0GHz 8 x 512KB L2 Cache 12MB L3 Cache Socket G34 115W 8-Core Server Processor OS6128WKT8EGOWOF

That's under $600 for both parts.

TheShadow

RobertKaucher wrote: »

Will they stand around while you refill it's tank?

Better have a nice backup....

Zombie Tools: Accessories for the Apocalypse | Makers of Zombie-Killing Weapons | Missoula, Montana

Nice find Robert. Gave me some chuckles, bookmarked of course Thanks.