Building a 2011 ESXi, xeon really needed?

[x-cimo]

I am looking at building a Socket 2011 system hosting a vmware esxi server with 32Gb of ram (extandable to 64GB). This is my main reason to go socket 2011 versus upcomming Ivy bridge.

It seem that going the Xeon way would cost me a lot more just to get ECC memory.

About +50-100 for the xeon cpu, about 100-150 for the ECC ram, and I have some issue finding a board that support registered ECC memory but it's not going to be cheap.

What is your guys thought?

The ESXi will be for home use, and long term 10TB ZFS filesystem, hosting various server and a small production webserver/database.

I can live with the lower "reliability" of non-ecc ram (I can live with down time), however data integrity issue would suck, but that being said my current hyper-v server has been running for years with non-ecc ram and haven't had any issues.

Thanks for you advise!

 

[Xneff]

Eh . . . either that or go AMD as generally VM's are more memory limited then CPU processing limited. We run a Trio of 2x12 core Opterons w/ 32gb of ram at work. They have worked flawlessly for two years. Dell Power Edge 2970's. Plan on upgrading each of them to 64gb by the end of this year.

But as to the ram question. . . i have no good answer for you. Ours are ECC, if I remember correctly.

 

[Tiporaro]

If its a home server and you're not needing the xeon/ecc, why not just build a desktop 2011 platform with a non-xeon chip and non-ecc ram? I guess I'm not sure what your overall question is - are you just looking for confirmation on whether ecc is worth it or not?

Personally, for home use I don't think its critical, and the added expense that is entailed in getting ecc is definitely more than negligible. Since you can get pretty much everything connectivity wise (more full-length pci-e slots, 8 dimm slots, vt-d, etc.) from a desktop setup on 2011, it's definitely more cost-effective imo. Unless of course you're looking at something in the realm of dual cpu boards or using 8-core chips, but your statement comparing xeon chips as 50-100 more than a standard chip leads me to believe that you're looking at something a little less exotic.

 

[x-cimo]

Yup got my question right, 2011 system with desktop cpu/ram vs server cpu(xeon)/ram.

Does all i7 socket 2011 support VT-x and VT-d ?

I am looking @3820 or the 3930K.

 

[Tiporaro]

3820 and c2 stepping 3930/60's support vt-d, motherboard manufacturer has to have implemented it correctly as well though. I can personally verify that Asus has on multiple versions of their X79 line, and have also heard that there was success on some gigabyte boards. Presumably all of them should support vt-d as its part of the x79 spec, but anyone that has looked into vt-d/iommu knows that it can be a crapshoot at times (iommu on 990fx is very hit or miss from what I've seen).

Additionally, if you're looking at a xeon/ecc, I believe you're looking at a server class mb as well, as I don't believe the desktop boards play nicely with ecc (I could be wrong). So there's added expense for a comparable server board like a supermicro, and usually with less pci-e slot options, if that's of any importance to you. That being said, there are some benefits to a server mb, such as IPMI - but, on a home build, the amount of use you actually get from IPMI is rather low - once the esxi server is setup, you're using the vsphere client for everything anyhow.

 

[Tiporaro]

Just to add some context, I'm currently running an esxi 5 host on a 3820/Asus P9X79 Pro platform very happily. So much so that I'm typing this out on a vm that has a passed through pcie vga and usb and acts as a pseduo-desktop.

 

[nOrVow]

I believe the total cost of ownership would be much lower with AMD server stuff if one seeks to have a lot of ram. Is ECC ram really that much more expensive? Their single socket G34s support 128GBs maximum with ecc-ram. I think their AMD server stuff support AMD-v/iommu as well, which is their version of intels VT-x/d.

Just a thought.

 

[Tiporaro]

When I was looking at some of the amd server parts, I couldn't seem to find quite the performance I wanted too much cheaper, nor could I find a pci-e layout that allowed for much. Maybe I missed some, but I will admit I'm also slightly biased towards intel with the newer generation chips as I've had better overall experiences - that being said, I haven't had a hands-on with the newer opteron, so perhaps I'm missing out.

 

[black88mx6]

I was originally looking at desktop/workstation 2011 board, most likely the P9X79 WS. Instead I am now looking to purchase the SuperMicro X9SRi-F. IMPI for me is one of the main drivers. I want to put this server in a closet and forget abou it. I also can use ECC ram, and has dual supported Intel NIC cards.

I will not need more than 3 PCI-e slots, so more of those would be a waste for me. Onboard USB key slot is nice also. Pair it up with a lower cost E5 Zeon and the price difference is about $100 more than the Asus board.

 

[Tiporaro]

I was originally looking at desktop/workstation 2011 board, most likely the P9X79 WS. Instead I am now looking to purchase the SuperMicro X9SRi-F. IMPI for me is one of the main drivers. I want to put this server in a closet and forget abou it. I also can use ECC ram, and has dual supported Intel NIC cards.

I will not need more than 3 PCI-x slots, so more of those would be a waste for me. Onboard USB key slot is nice also. Pair it up with a lower cost E5 Zeon and the price difference is about $100 more than the Asus board.

I'm guessing you meant pci-e, but in any case if you don't need the additional slots, and if the lower clocked e5 works out, what you've outlined is definitely a great solution. It also gives you an E5-upgrade path in the future, although the higher end e5's 2600 series do ramp up in cost somewhat quickly (unless you're referring to the e5 1600 series, which pretty much mirrors the desktop 2011 chips in price/performance).

IPMI is a nice feature, and can give you that "never have to see it" experience, although I found on the home-esxi host setup, once its up and running I basically didn't touch the IPMI anymore as there were very few cases where I was hard shutting down the entire server at all - if I was, I was probably doing so to do something with the hardware, which meant I was at the server anyway, otherwise it'd be a esxi reboot at worst. Nonetheless, it definitely has its use and its convenience, so its hard to say no to it if its there.

One suggestion though is that if you're looking at the lower end of e5 xeon's anyhow (presumably quads) and the pci-e lanes aren't a concern, a very economical route to go is the E3-1230 with something like a supermicro x9scm board. I've seen newegg run numerous combo deals (just checked and its currently available) with $55 off on that and you end up out the door on mb/cpu for under 400. You get ipmi, dual lan, etc., and a relatively quick cpu with HT. Downsides are only 4 dimm slots and limited pci-e layout, but if it fits your needs, its definitely worth considering.

 

[black88mx6]

I'm guessing you meant pci-e, but in any case if you don't need the additional slots, and if the lower clocked e5 works out, what you've outlined is definitely a great solution.

One suggestion though is that if you're looking at the lower end of e5 xeon's anyhow (presumably quads) and the pci-e lanes aren't a concern, a very economical route to go is the E3-1230 with something like a supermicro x9scm board. I've seen newegg run numerous combo deals (just checked and its currently available) with $55 off on that and you end up out the door on mb/cpu for under 400. You get ipmi, dual lan, etc., and a relatively quick cpu with HT. Downsides are only 4 dimm slots and limited pci-e layout, but if it fits your needs, its definitely worth considering.

Thanks, I was thinking PCI-e, but the board also has an option for PCI-x for a total of 6 slots.

One of the big reasons for the newer 2011 board is the 8 dimm slots. Cheap 4GB sticks for a quick 32GB and ability to go 8GB or more. Even with (lower price) E5 4 core, I would not run out of CPU, but having the memory is where it's at.

MB and Xeon chip as I list above will run about $700.

 

[gimlet]

ASUS motherboards have often had ECC enabled even for non-xeon cpus - even on a lot of their AMD boards. It SEEMS to work, shows up in memtest and system logs. My quick scan of info for the P9X79 WS which is a board I'm looking at for a future build seems to confirm that ECC can be used with/without xeons, but I'm not going to be doing serious spec checking of boards until I'm just about to purchase in a couple months.

I prefer to use ECC whenever the price premium isn't too great, so it looks like I'll be able to do that for this build too. ED: And if xeon IS required, I agree the low end xeons have recently looked pretty price competitive with desktop chips, so again the price premium should be tolerable...