AIO home lab

jonaspaulo

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Joined
Jan 28, 2015
Messages
5
Hi all,

I am new here so first of all thanks a lot for the site and foruns which are a helpful resource.
I am planning on building an ESXi based server for home use and hoping to get some tips.

The goal to my ESXi home server is the following:

1- Running a FreeNAS VM with 6x 4 or 6TB WD RED disks running ZFS. Also inside this FreeNAS instance I will be running Plex for media streaming
2- About 10 Virtualized routers/ other SDN technologies (each taking up to 2 GB RAM)
3- Multiple Test VMs for windows server, redhat, kali and other security distributions

1 would be always running, and 2 and 3 on the need basis.


Proposed setup:

Xeon 2620V2 420 euros
Supermicro X9SRH-7F 430 euros
16GB RAM Memory for SuperMicro SUPER X9SRH-7F (DDR3-8500 - Reg) | eBay 200euros x2
Samsung SSD 840 or curcial 500gb
SanDisk Cruzer Fit 8gb 8 euros
Power Supply Corsair RM550 100 EUR
Cpu cooler Noctua NH-U9DX i4 70 EUR
Case Fractal Design Define R5 120 EUR

Regarding the NAS OS, I just set with FreeNAS because I know a bit about the OS, but I am open to suggestions.
I have noticed that bashing on FreeNAS forums for people that go with the VM route.

The use of NAS will be only iscsi/nfs simple shares two 2 laptops and the Plex server wherever it resides inside the host. Therefore not sure what is the best route here NAS OS wise.

Regarding my setup I still have some doubts.
My plan is to leave the LSI in HBA mode dedicated only to the NAS OS VM, and then run all the other VMs from the SSD datastore (Maybe I will go the crucial 512gb ssd to have some more room).
And the USB 8gb drive to run ESXi.

Am I thinking correctly over here?

Also I got some feedback to choose 1620V2 instead of 2620v2 (more ghz vs more cores).
Besides FreeNAS which isn't very dependent on CPU i guess, the "main" VMs (the virtualized routers) will run with 1GB RAM and 2 vCPUs each) and that was why I was pending to more cores versus more speed. Is this correct?

Now based on the requirements and the proposed solutions, do you think one of this is the best option ? Or are there any others within the same price range that would fit me better?


Thanks a lot
 
Last edited:
See like a fine setup, but a little overkill perhaps. Since the MB has one CPU socket just get the 1620. If you need more cores get the other one.
 
Thanks for the tip. the main issue is the requirement of 10 VMs with 2 vcpu each. That is why I thought that more cores would be better. Also the tdp of the 2620
 
I wouldn't worry about the vCPU count but be more concerned how much of that cpu will they be using? You can have 10 VMs on a quad core if most were just sitting idle.
 
Multiple vCPU cores don't work like physical ones, use as few as possible so you could easily get by with an e3 as long as you don't want to exceed 32gb ram.

Plenty of articles around with details about esxi's cpu scheduler and multiple vCPUs.
 
They won't be using much. But I want to have more than those 10 machines, as per the initial description. The NAS OS one, and some other test ones without much load.
 
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