Hardware for VM hosting

I'm looking to replace my old vmware box with slightly newer hardware (8 core, 16GB ram maxed out). My current system pulls 180w at idle. I know Dell R720's with 2CPU (E5s) pull around ~140w.

I might be looking for a unicorn and being unrealistic, if so, let me know.

I'm looking for a system, (don't care if I have to build it myself from parts, modify fans etc.) but would like a system that has 64GB+ of memory, as quiet as possible since it will be near my office (doesn't have to be silent but not much more than Dell R210 ii), low (ish) power usage (I know looking for something in the E5 range is a lot better on power than say the Xeon X series at idle), for around $550.

Something of similar specs of this (but I feel it will be too loud with the 1U form-factor).http://www.ebay.com/itm/1U-Foxconn-...id=100005&rk=3&rkt=6&sd=291861039949#viTabs_0)

What would be my best options for getting something like this?

Does it need to be a rack mount? I recently bought a Lenovo Workstation S30 and changed out the CPU and i had 64gb of ddr3 ecc to put it. I put an e5-2670v1 in it. The power consumption is probably not the best but the cpu TDP is 115w for 8 cores at 2.6.

If you dont mind the larger towers you can find the HP and Dell workstation lines that use the original 2011 for pretty cheap. SandyBridge Ivy Bridge EP Cpus.

I agree with luke51087, large tower, Xeon E5v1 or v2, perhaps even custom built.

Mine is a Core i7 4930k with 32GB of memory on an Asus P9x79e-WS in a Thermaltake Core x9 case. That socket 2011 chip allows for enough PCIe to run internal and external RAID, 10G, and a video card.

Is it in your house?
I never liked it when my gf complained that something I brought home from work was scaring her cats

Unless you really want to dump $ into white boxing a solution that may or may not be worth it when you are done I'd go get a recent vendor built workstation that fits your needs, cheapish and throw in parts.

I've been seeing a lot of off-lease dual E5-2650 on Ebay as well, and have been thinking about picking one up too. The performance per $ just seems really good with these systems. Are these any good for ~5 VMs on ESXi (Win 10 - Blue Iris for 3-6 IP cams *planning stage no cams now; Win 10 - HomeSeer; Linux for a few Docker recipes; Linux - LAMP stack; Kali - to dabble)?
I have read that Blue Iris eats a lot of resources and virtualization it is generally not a good idea, but surely a machine like this should be able to handle it

I have a basement, so sound isnt as big of an issue for me

J-Will said:

I've been seeing a lot of off-lease dual E5-2650 on Ebay as well, and have been thinking about picking one up too. The performance per $ just seems really good with these systems. Are these any good for ~5 VMs on ESXi (Win 10 - Blue Iris for 3-6 IP cams *planning stage no cams now; Win 10 - HomeSeer; Linux for a few Docker recipes; Linux - LAMP stack; Kali - to dabble)?
I have read that Blue Iris eats a lot of resources and virtualization it is generally not a good idea, but surely a machine like this should be able to handle it

I have a basement, so sound isnt as big of an issue for me

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Depends on Load. I run separate VMs for DNS, LAMP stack, VPN, FreePBX, Zoneminder with 5 cams 24/7 recording, UniFi Controller, smokeping, etc. on a single I5-2400s and I have no issues whatsoever. Power draw is around 60 watts.

All of this is at home though with single household level loads on the hardware.

Oh nice. Maybe I'll look into a newer i5 or i7

Ive read that zone minder is better on resources than Blue Iris.

You spun up a Windows client just for uni controller?

I have 3 white box hosts running at home in my basement. CPU is generally not an issue, unless you have some specific use case. Two are i7-4770 and one is E3-1231v3. I have ran them in several configurations with several VM's, never a CPU issue.

Why not move to AWS or some other off site solution?

J-Will said:

Oh nice. Maybe I'll look into a newer i5 or i7

Ive read that zone minder is better on resources than Blue Iris.

You spun up a Windows client just for uni controller?

Click to expand...

Linux unifi controller.

I add OS descriptions to the container names. U12.04-64 = Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64 bit