Hardware to setup a VM MSCA 2012 testing / learning box

pistolpete31

Ok I am thinking to start off getting this-http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Poweredge-C1100-1U-2X-XEON-QC-L5520-2-26GHZ-NO-HDD-24GB-DDR3-Tested-/261199263261?pt=COMP_EN_Servers&hash=item3cd0b0761d

Same as yours but 24GB-should be plenty and then eventually get another one. Also I will get a small SSD for the OS. I basically want to run Server 2012 and Exchange and then probably a few server 2012 virtual machines or whatever makes sense. Just starting off in the book and I really need to get a server going. Anything else to start?

tprice5

ESXi has a footprint of about 4gb. You'd be best off getting a small thumb drive for the OS. That or partitioning one of drives so you're not wasting an entire SSD/HDD for the host OS.
Also you might want to research the energy requirements of this server. Savings on the front end may mean higher electricity bill.

Food for thought.

kriscamaro68

atari37 wrote: »

Nice setup. I have a similar setup using Dell C6100 in my basement. It's a 2U but comes with 4 servers in the 2U chassis (4 in 1). The density is great for running an MCSE lab. Two Quad core Xeons w/24GB of RAM in each server. 96GB total RAM and 8 quad cores seem like an overkill but it worked great for my MCSE 2012. I paid $600 for it and I have no regrets. Some people online complain that it's too loud but I have mine in a rack down in my basement and we don't hear it up on the first floor. It doesn't bother us when we are down in the basement either.

I was acutally on the verge of buying the c6100. I looked on ebay and was planning on getting the setup with 192gb of ram across the 4 servers but the price shot up so much I just couldn't bring myself to buy it. I also couldn't bring myself to buy anything less then the 192gb version for that server. I could have done fine with the same one you bought but knowing that there was more out there in terms of ram was more than I could bear.

atari37

RAM can always be upgraded though. I wouldn't have purchased it if I couldn't upgrade the memory down the line. 96GB enough for my current needs. That's how I looked at it. I bought what I could afford at the time but I will eventually upgrade the RAM as needed. I believe each node can take up to 96GB of RAM.

tprice5

The free version of esxi only supports up to 32gb, I believe.

atari37

tprice5 wrote: »

The free version of esxi only supports up to 32gb, I believe.

Didn't they remove that limitation in 5.5? I thought I read about that a little while ago.

pistolpete31

I'm still not sure what I am going to do-
kriscamaro68 -how much do you think it costs to power one of the c1100 servers?

kriscamaro68

pistolpete31 wrote: »

I'm still not sure what I am going to do-
kriscamaro68 -how much do you think it costs to power one of the c1100 servers?

It ran about $10 extra a month for me give or take a little. That was with 72gb of ram in it and 4 ssd's. With that setup it averaged 90 watts while running. Used a kill-a-watt to measure. That was with a c1100. I don't know that I mentioned it but before the hp DL160's I had 2 dell c1100's. I sold them awhile back and made some $$ off them cause I originally paid $460 for them with 72gb of ram. It sucks now cause ram has shot the prices up $140. Now I wish I would have just kept them cause I ended up paying more for the DL160's then I made from selling the c1100's.

atari37

kriscamaro68 wrote: »

It ran about $10 extra a month for me give or take a little. That was with 72gb of ram in it and 4 ssd's. With that setup it averaged 90 watts while running. Used a kill-a-watt to measure. That was with a c1100. I don't know that I mentioned it but before the hp DL160's I had 2 dell c1100's. I sold them awhile back and made some $$ off them cause I originally paid $460 for them with 72gb of ram. It sucks now cause ram has shot the prices up $140. Now I wish I would have just kept them cause I ended up paying more for the DL160's then I made from selling the c1100's.

Did you have the C1100 24/7?

kriscamaro68

atari37 wrote: »

Did you have the C1100 24/7?

Yes it was on 24/7.

pistolpete31

Thank you for all the info and help so far. So would I be fine just getting one c1100 with 24GB of ram and then putting an SSD in there? It is going to be strictly for lab purposes but I will probably join other computers to the domain and play around and would like to run Exchange 2013 as well and play with that. I could always add another if needed-but I really want to get started.

kriscamaro68

If you are going to just do 1 ssd for now get atleast a 250gb or more so that you have enough room for multiple vm's. The Samsung evo 250gb ssd's are usually pretty cheap. You can even get a 500gb evo for under $250. For now that should do what you need and get you started.

pistolpete31

Thanks for all the info

sacredboy

Guys, what would you say about i7-4770, 32GB DDR3, 1TB HDD for doing labs with virtual machines? The only difference is that my aim is MCSE 2012.

kriscamaro68

sacredboy wrote: »

Guys, what would you say about i7-4770, 32GB DDR3, 1TB HDD for doing labs with virtual machines? The only difference is that my aim is MCSE 2012.

I would say get and SSD or 2 and you will not regret it. The rest looks good.

tprice5

sacredboy wrote: »

Guys, what would you say about i7-4770, 32GB DDR3, 1TB HDD for doing labs with virtual machines? The only difference is that my aim is MCSE 2012.

Sounds good to me. How you go about it really depends on the virtualization platform. If you use ESXi you will need a separate computer to remote into the box. If you use Hyper-V then you can lab directly on the box without any secondary hardware.

sacredboy

tprice5 wrote: »

Sounds good to me. How you go about it really depends on the virtualization platform. If you use ESXi you will need a separate computer to remote into the box. If you use Hyper-V then you can lab directly on the box without any secondary hardware.

Well, actually I'm going to use VMware Workstation (if you were meaning a software for virtualizaton).

tprice5

Then that will be plenty big. My only concern would be that the processor only has 4 cores but this likely won't be an issue. With virtualization the more cores the better. Bit of advice, don't overprivision your VMs. Server 08 R2 only requires 512MB RAM. Your DC will likely not service more than 12 systems so keep it light and beef up the stuff that you'll really be using.

pistolpete31

Ok I am back at looking at labs and found two options that I'd love to hear opinions on, I will post a link to both items on ebay. First is just a blade server and the other is a laptop-i am posting the laptop because at my work we are getting rid of a few of these and I could buy one for $425 with about the same stats as the one below here. Or if there is something else I should get. I do want to run Exchange as well (possible two servers of that).

HP EliteBook 8760w Intel Core i7 2760QM 2 40GHz 16GB RAM 120GB SSD 1TB HD | eBay

HP Proliant DL160 G6 1U 2X Xeon QC L5520 2 26GHz No HDD 4XTRAYS 72GB DDR3 000491532004 | eBay