Show your home lab / your ESX/ESXi architecture

TechJunky

I have a few DL380 G6 servers with 24GB Ram and 750GB of SAS Raid 5 disks. I can run pretty much anything I want on them.

apr911

Bought a C1100 AKA CS24-TY from ebay for $350. Dual Xeon L5520 (Quad core 2.26 Hyperthreaded processors) with 48GB of ram and no harddrives. I then bought a 2.5 to 3.5 hotswap coversion tray from Amazon and loaded the 2 of the bays with 500GB SSDs. The remaining 2 bays are my bulk data storage containing 2 WD RED 3TB drives.

All told, cost me about $1000.

kriscamaro68

Currently my lab is a Hyper-V lab but once I have my MCSE then I will be turning it into a VMWare lab. Anyway here is what I run:

2 HP DL160 G6's with the following:
Dual quad core L5520 CPU's
72GB of ram
Dual gigabit hp nics
1-120gb ssd for OS
1-4 port gigabit intel card

I then built a new desktop for my self and used my old desktop for my domain controller and file server:
1 core i7 920
12gb of ram
1-120gb ssd for OS and VM running VMM 2012R2
4-ssd's and 1 500gb wd black in a storage pool with storage tiering serving up an SMB 3 share for VM storage.
I have about 10 nics in this computer. 4 storage, 2 for VMM VM, 2 for network services, 1 for management.

The 2 hp's are in a Hyper-V cluster with the VMM VM managing them. Gets me 144GB of ram and 32 usable cores between the 2. So far everything is working good. I do want to upgrade my switch though. Might get a 24 port cisco gig switch like a 2960g or maybe go 10G with those newer netgear 8 port switches and clean up the cables everywhere. I have a hard time deciding cause the 10G network will cost me about $2k but just the thought of it makes me giddy. I don't need it but man I want it even if it is only a lab.

RouteMyPacket

I am still looking for hardware for my own ESX lab, I want to 2 hosts is all. I can't seem to find anything under $2,000 for that though

jibbajabba

RouteMyPacket wrote: »

I am still looking for hardware for my own ESX lab, I want to 2 hosts is all. I can't seem to find anything under $2,000 for that though

Dell T5500 on eBay.

Dell Precision T5500 Workstation 2X Six Core L5640 2 26GHz 72GB RAM 80GB SATA | eBay

Can even be cheaper. I had RAM and CPUs already and I snapped up a T5500 for under £100

A single box with 72GB of Ram is all you need for a decent nested setup.

Lab – Physical Setup « Open902

bermovick

I've seen those, but $900 is still a pretty huge chunk for what will essentially be for labs for vcp, my wife's microsoft MCSAs (sql & server & possibly sharepoint), and my cisco CSR1000vs.

jibbajabba

bermovick wrote: »

I've seen those, but $900 is still a pretty huge chunk for what will essentially be for labs for vcp, my wife's microsoft MCSAs (sql & server & possibly sharepoint), and my cisco CSR1000vs.

That was just an example - you can find them way cheaper, it just depends on what your required specs are. The T5500 come inititally with 6 DIMM slots and one socket - at a later stage you are able to buy a raiser for the T5500 which gets you 3 additional DIMM slots and a second socket.

I got two Xeon 5520 in there and even vSphere 6 installs just fine

Highl1

i7-3770, 32 GB RAM, Kingston Hyper-X 240 GB, everything on Workstation 9

lsud00d

jibbajabba wrote: »

Dell T5500 on eBay.

Dell Precision T5500 Workstation 2X Six Core L5640 2 26GHz 72GB RAM 80GB SATA | eBay

Can even be cheaper. I had RAM and CPUs already and I snapped up a T5500 for under £100

A single box with 72GB of Ram is all you need for a decent nested setup.

Lab – Physical Setup « Open902

I think I'm going to pull the trigger on one of these...I have a legit gaming desktop setup, but 16GB RAM and even the hyperthreaded quadcore i7 isn't enough beef...so after researching Dell and HP workstations, I think this T5500 is the one.

I'll be doing more than VCP/MCSE studies so I need. moar. RAM!

QHalo

Management Cluster - 2 hosts
Lian LI PC-V351B
Rosewill 450w PSU
Patriot 16GB USB Flash Drive
Intel 1000PT Dual-Port NIC – get these from eBay they’re super cheap there
Supermicro X8SIL-F-O
Kingston ECC UDIMM 16GB
Intel X3430 2.4Ghz
128GB SSD in one host
200GB SSD in one host
PernixData FVP

Compute Cluster - 3 hosts running VSAN

Supermicro A1SAI-C2750F-O x1
8GB of Kingston KVR16SLE11/8 x4
Samsung 840 EVO 120GB x1
SanDisk Cruzer 16GB USB Flash Drive x1
In Win IW-BP655-200BL x1
ToughArmor MB994SP-4S x1
IBM M1015 x1
300GB 10k SAS drives x3
Normal SATA power to 4 pin Molex connector

Storage -

1 QNAP TS-459 Pro II
Western Digital 1TB Black Drives x4

Networking -

2x Cisco 3750G stacked

lsud00d

That's a legit lab setup Qhalo! What are you running on the compute cluster (as far as applications/work load)?

QHalo

I was doing some work with vCloud Director, but things are about to switch over to Horizon View for some learning of that platform.