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Building ESXi box, how does this look?

S

Sofasloth

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Joined
Oct 4, 2004
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I'm looking to build an ESXi box to host some VMs for my home lab. I'm looking to start with a few Windows Server 2003/2008 VMs and a few random others. I will host the VMs on my NAS (SS4200-E).

I already have a hard drive, case, power supply and an Intel 1000 GT dual Gigabit NIC (if I decide to use it) already.

This is what I am leaning towards for the guts of the box:

Mobo: BIOSTAR TH67B
CPU: Intel Core i3 2100
RAM: Corsair XMS 8GB DDR3-1333 (2x4GB)
 
The onboard realtek nic may not work but a workaround is available here. But since you have the intel nic you just use that.

The board may not support vt-d if you need that kind of technology.
 
I would bump the ram some, if you plan to use the vm's for anything, I would try for 16gb if the ram is cheap enough. I always find when it comes to Vm's, I run out of available ram before anything else.
 
VT-D is an Intel Virtualization Tech Directed I/O where you can "passthrough" physical devices such as storage controllers..etc to a VM as if the VM itself owned the physical device.
 
Thanks everyone. I'm not sure I'm too concerned about the VT-D right now. It's just a box to run so I can play with various OSes to keep up with what's going on.

One reason I liked this board is the 4 memory slots. I'll start with 2x4GB and when I need more I can add it via the available slots. I'm trying not to spend too much to get started.

Since I have the dual Intel NIC, I won't have to worry about any Realtek issues.
 
Sucks Sofasloth, like mentioned vt-d isn't needed if you're just testing. If you plan on taking advantage of direct hardware access then def get a better cpu down the road.
 
Looks like about a $50 jump to the i5 2400 would get VT-d.

For a general home test environment, is it something I really need to worry about?
 
If you're getting your feet wet with virtualization then no. Spend that $50 on more ram or better nics. My first test build was a optiplex 755 core2duo with 4gb of ram. :)
 
And just in time I caught this motherboard on NewEgg for $59.99 today as the afternoon "Shell Shocker" deal. That's another $20 saved as it was $79.99 this morning.
 
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