Home lab advice

Spike12

Hi everyone,

I'm going to be working on a couple MS certifications in the coming months, and I'm looking for some advice on creating a home lab system.

I'd like to stay within a budget of $500-$600 and I had my eye on a Dell Inspiron 660 (not the mini tower) or an XPS 8500 (around $650). If the Inspiron 600 could do the job, I would rather go that route to save some bucks, as I can always upgrade it later.

I'm open to suggestions, including other brands.

Thanks in advance!

seth479

Does your current computer not have the specs to run Virtual Machines? If it does that would be the cheapest and easiest way to go, install Windows 7 and then use it to go along with the material. If you want to get a good grasp on imaging and deploying maybe even install Windows Server 2008 and you can play around with WDS, WSUS and other roles to get a grasp on them. My virtual lab was mainly Server 2008 R2 and 2 Win7 Ultimate clients and I played with Active Directory, GPO, WSUS, WDS, DHCP and DNS roles and it was fun and I got a beginning grasp on some of the SA stuff.

If you're set on getting another physical machine, the 660 would probably work for you.

kriscamaro68

Screw buying dell crap. Buy this from newegg


XCLIO 320 Black Finish Steel & Plastic & Brushed Aluminum Bezel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case Item $34.99

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive $84.99

ASUS M5A88-M AM3+ AMD 880G SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard Item $99.99

CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 V2 (CMPSU-430CXV2) 430W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply) $44.99

CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CML16GX3M4A1600C9B $77.99

COOLER MASTER R4-L2S-122B-GP 120mm 4 Blue LED Case Fan 2 in 1 pack Item buy->X2 ($10.99 each)

XIGMATEK Gaia SD1283 120mm Long Life Bearing CPU Cooler Item $19.99

OCZ Vertex 4 VTX4-25SAT3-128G 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) Item $99.99

AMD FX-8120 Zambezi 3.1GHz Socket AM3+ 125W Eight-Core Desktop Processor FD8120FRGUBOX Item $159.99


Subtotal:

$655.89

EV42TMAN

I agree with kriscamaro68 about dell... but not his build I'd recommend something like this
all prices are from Newegg 5 mins ago
$33.99 Coolermaster Elite 330 Upgraded RC-330u-kkn1
$74.99 Seagate ST500DM002 500GB SATA 3 Hard Drive (get 2 and put in RAID 0)
$67.99 Seasonic S12II 520 Watt power supply
$19.99 Kingston Hyper-X Blu 4 GB DDR3 1600(get 4)
$99.99 Intel BOXDH77EB motherboard
$199.99 Intel Core i5-3470 Ivy Bridge 3.2GHZ CPU
$637.90 Total

normally i'd recommend server drives and motherboard but, it shoots the budget up real quick. let me know if you need any help picking parts.

ITMonkey

I'm all for new builds and all ... and yes, s***w Dell two times! But throw me a banana!! We don't know if Spike12 has ever done a build, or if he knows what to do if he hits a problem if doing one.

I'm just wrapping up my dream lab build now. Only problems worth speaking of were an outdated bios and a mobo that crapped out into its 2nd week (the rma was approved today -- an absolutely great vendor!). Glad my wife isn't into reading this forum ... I spent way over the price range being discussed. Even then I had the benefit of two months looking for great deals (newegg, ebay and craigslist).

Spike12

Thank you for the replies, everyone!

Your guidance is much appreciated. I've built my own computer last year and I'm working in finishing up my Comptia A+.

I didn't realize I could get a similarly priced custom build and I'm definitely going to lean this path now.

Thanks again!

ForeverIT27

I honestly don't think you need to spend all that money on a lab machine. I personally like configuring real servers because you'll have experience with their unique hardware and know how to maintain them as well, if you want to lab for any MS cert, I recommend looking on Ebay or Amazon for a gently used Dell or HP or IBM server. I got a nice Powerdge on Ebay for $200 with dual Xeon 3.2Ghz and 4GB Rams. Server hardware is totally different from your normal desktop PC. For $350 or even less you could get yourself a nice gently used Server online and play around with it. I think if you Lab around with real servers you will feel more comfortable configuring and troubleshooting them in the future. Servers I think are important to know how they are build and configure. Think about it.

Spike12

I see there are a bunch of PowerEdge variations listed. Would you recommend specific models that I could purchase at this price range?

Thanks again!