ESX White Box

E

evandena

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 17, 2006
Messages
274
So I'm looking to build an ESX white box server. I've done a bit of researching, and have decided on a rough draft of parts. Before I go buck wild and order everything in one shot, I'd like to bounce my ideas off the community. Please speak up if you see any glaring incompatibilities or feel free to share your opinions.

Intel Xeon X3220 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor - [Newegg]
SUPERMICRO MBD-C2SBA+-O T - Motherboard[Newegg]
2 x GeIL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 - - [Newegg]
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610 EPS12V EPS12V 610W - [Newegg]
Chenbro Rackmount Case - [Newegg]
Dell PERC 5/i SAS RAID Controller off Ebay. If needed I can flash it with LSI firmware.

I also plan on adding 3x 320GB SATA drivers with a SAS=>SATA cable, and use a random 160GB drive for OS (non raided, if ESX lets me), or possibly a small SAS drive.
 
You can get the X3220 for a few dollars less at ClubIT.com, and you can get the Q6600 OEM for enough less that you could get an aftermarket HSF with what you save. Probably a better idea anyway -- quads run hot.

Your link for the Supermicro board goes to the X3220 again. Here is the proper link. Any particular reason you're going with the G33 over a P35? Could likely save $70 or so.

Another $10 will get you the Corsair 620HX, which is modular if you prefer that. If you're willing to wait a week or two another rebate will almost certainly come around on it.
$125 gets you a Corsair 650TX -- non-modular, but rated slightly higher, and a 5 year warranty just like the PC Power and Cooling.
All three are Seasonic builds, too.
 
Thanks for the information.

My reasoning behind the motherboard it should work with the PERC card (which itself is a huge money saver).
Can you foresee any problems using a desktop motherboard vs a server motherboard in this setup?
 
PERC cards seem to have a lot of problems with Intel boards, so I'd shy away from them.
See: http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?t=84882

You can get around the intel chipset problems by taping the smbus pins on the PCI-Express connector on the card, but that seems like a lot of work, and may be problematic the future.

But, using "desktop" parts in a server system, I haven't run into any problems.
 
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