MCITP: EA Upgrade - Server Purchase Recommendations for Virtual Lab

Hey guys,

I just bought the MS Press books for the 70-649, 70-680 & the 70-647 to upgrade my MCSE but on this track I wanted to setup virtual machines to lab learn. I didn't do this on my way to earning the MCSE because I had Server 2003 actually loaded on a Dell PowerEdge 2500 server to test.

So I'd like to purchase a better server to load 2008 and run Virtual Server 2005 or VMWare on it to simulate labs but this requires at least 4GB of RAM.

I'd like to keep the cost under $200, does anyone have some suggestions on model's, configurations and/or places to look? I've found some good options in this range but they all require RAM upgrades and that gets real expensive.

Thanks for the help!

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Comments

Hyper-Me

I'd keep an eye on dell outlet. I got an inspiron 580 w/ 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD and a Core i5 for 400$

petedude

I've occasionally seen some < $200 AMD Opteron servers on eBay. Those will take up to 16GB of RAM, IIRC.

earweed

I labbed on my PC when studying for the 70-640. I only have 2GB RAM. I used VMWare workstation and only needed 2 Server 2k8 VM's for most labs. Just set your VM's for using min amount of RAM 512MB and it works fine.

ElvisG

Newegg.com - Gateway FX6831-03 Intel Core i7 860(2.80GHz) 16GB DDR3 1.5TB ATI Radeon HD 5850 Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Sell the video card and you got a dam good lab computer. This computer and a technet subscription and your all gold. I installed Hyper-V and have 6 servers, 2 clients and it's been running solid for 4 months straight with only 1 reboot.

genXrcist

earweed wrote: »

I labbed on my PC when studying for the 70-640. I only have 2GB RAM. I used VMWare workstation and only needed 2 Server 2k8 VM's for most labs. Just set your VM's for using min amount of RAM 512MB and it works fine.

Why VMWare Workstation 7 as opposed to MS Virtual PC/Server?

earweed

ElvisG wrote: »

Newegg.com - Gateway FX6831-03 Intel Core i7 860(2.80GHz) 16GB DDR3 1.5TB ATI Radeon HD 5850 Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Sell the video card and you got a dam good lab computer. This computer and a technet subscription and your all gold. I installed Hyper-V and have 6 servers, 2 clients and it's been running solid for 4 months straight with only 1 reboot.

I think he mentioned doing it inexpensively. That's a lot of dough there, but something I'd like to have myself if I had the money.

ipconfig.all

If you want to become a MCITP EA you will have to study Hyper-V and in order for you to run Hyper-V in a machine you will need a x64 OS of Windows Server 2008 and your processor must support virtualisation (not much processors support this) so buy a CPU that supports Hyper V.

earweed

I'm not sure how it goes with the upgrade path but I've got all the books for the regular path for MCITP:EA. I'm only at 70-642 but have looked in the other books to see how I need to lab and none requires actually doing Hyper-v, although it would help to have it. I'll be required to know about Hyper-v so it would be a good idea to lab it but if resources don't permit (not yet, but getting there soon) the OP would probably be able to get by without it.
The computer Hyper-me listed in a post further up would work fine in supporting Hyper-v. If I wasn't in middle of building my own computer I would be looking at something like that.

Devilsbane

For what you want, a $200 limitation doesn't seem possible. With a pricetag like that it seems like all you could do is buy a reasonable desktop computer to install your stuff on.

earweed

genXrcist wrote: »

Why VMWare Workstation 7 as opposed to MS Virtual PC/Server?

I have it free and I personally prefer it to MS Virtual PC/Server. Does MS Virtual PC even have the same network editing (choice of bridging, keeping virtual network private) that VMware has?
Virtual PC or sun virtual box would work fine and they're free.

Devilsbane

earweed wrote: »

I have it free and I personally prefer it to MS Virtual PC/Server. Does MS Virtual PC even have the same network editing (choice of bridging, keeping virtual network private) that VMware has?
Virtual PC or sun virtual box would work fine and they're free.

Yes, VPC can use bridged, Nat, and private. It doesn't have the other options VMware has. You are limited to one of those 3 whereas VMware has 10 different possible networks.

earweed

Devilsbane wrote: »

For what you want, a $200 limitation doesn't seem possible. With a pricetag like that it seems like all you could do is buy a reasonable desktop computer to install your stuff on.

Actuall with a price tag like that you would be lucky to find a desktop to even minimally run what you need. You may be able to add a little more RAM to your existing computer if you shop around though.

Devilsbane

earweed wrote: »

Actuall with a price tag like that you would be lucky to find a desktop to even minimally run what you need. You may be able to add a little more RAM to your existing computer if you shop around though.

Depends who you know

OoteR

Virtualbox does all I need inside of 4gigs of ram...

Cost me nothing for the software, and.. well, i wanted the ram for games anyway.. :P

arwes

I've got a E2160 CPU. For a $70 processor, I OC'd the crap out of it to 2.9 GHz and the temps never got above 55c full load. Granted, it helps having the Tuniq Tower. Unfortunately, the CPU doesn't support virtualization and I want to set up a virtual home lab that doesn't suck. I'm running Windows 7 64 bit with 8GB of RAM. Would swapping out my CPU for something like a Q9400 make for a decent VM host setup? Or do I need to start over from scratch?

earweed

OoteR wrote: »

Virtualbox does all I need inside of 4gigs of ram...

Cost me nothing for the software, and.. well, i wanted the ram for games anyway.. :P

Wish I could put 4GB RAM in my POS HP Pavillion. Manufacturer says MOBO limited to 2GB

To Arwes, I'm not a hardware guru and would definitely need to put in time to see if you could even put that other CPU on your mobo. I'm personally starting from scratch and building a better box.

arwes

Oh yeah, it'll work. I've got a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L, and it'll take up to a Core 2 Extreme (that name makes me lol) QX9770. Just trying to figure the best price/performance bargain I can find. Even checking out used chips on eBay, though I'm a bit wary of that option.

TheShadow

Well if you add your beer and pizza ration to that $200 Dell has a decent sale right now for a quad xeon w/Hyper Threading server and 2 gig for $399 raise it to 4gig for another $79

The Dell Online Store: Build Your System

Assuming you can slap your old drive in you are good to go for $500. I really don't know what you can do for $200 outside of the home boy shopping network.

Devilsbane

TheShadow wrote: »

Well if you add your beer and pizza ration to that $200 Dell has a decent sale right now for a quad xeon w/Hyper Threading server and 2 gig for $399 raise it to 4gig for another $79

The Dell Online Store: Build Your System

Assuming you can slap your old drive in you are good to go for $500. I really don't know what you can do for $200 outside of the home boy shopping network.

That is a good deal. Keep in mind that this sytem has no OS.

toptek

I picked up a Dell 6800 with 8GB Ram and 4 X 3.66 CPU's on Ebay for 150 Euro. No scsi drives though so I set up openfiler on a laptop to connect to. Its very very loud so wouldn't recommend a 6800 for your living room

I have mine in a seperate room so I tolerate it when I'm labbing and switch it off when I'm finished. In hindsight though I'd prefer something quieter. But it does the job and is a decent spec. I've esxi installed on it now.