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ESXi/Hyper-V

H

Hawnted

n00b
Joined
Nov 17, 2007
Messages
33
I work from home and have business class internet with the bandwith to host my own server. I have been building computers for about 20 years, mainly high-end gaming machines. I have never built a server though. I run vSphere 4 at work. An environment with about 125 virtual servers, with 7 vHosts running vSphere 4. I like VMWare, but I am trying to decide if it is the best option for me at home. I have a license for Server 2008 R2 (which includes Hyper-V).

I plan to have a WHS v2 (when it is released) WHS for now, and this is one of my priorities. I will also have a web server, NAS, exchange server, and a few different desktop OSes to play on. I am a gamer, but my gaming machine is physical and will stay that way. I also use my computer to server up media to all the TVs in my house (one media center pc, and two PS3s).

Will Hyper-V or VMWare be the best choice for me? Knowing what I need to do, what specs will my system need to have? I am looking to spend around 500-750 dollars. I already have all the hard drives.

Thanks
 
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Since you have the license for Server 2008, I suggest going with hyper-v. It passes through hard disks very well which is exactly what is needed for WHS.

For hardware, a nice AMD Phenom II setup will get you where you need to be. If you want something that will also be able to do VMWare you will have to be very particular about the motherboard and ensure you have NICs that are on the HCL.
 
Treyshadow said:
Since you have the license for Server 2008, I suggest going with hyper-v. It passes through hard disks very well which is exactly what is needed for WHS.

For hardware, a nice AMD Phenom II setup will get you where you need to be. If you want something that will also be able to do Hyper-V you will have to be very particular about the motherboard and ensure you have NICs that are on the HCL.
Click to expand...


Any advice on Motherboards and NICs? How much RAM should I have?
 
I meant based on the #of VMs I will have. And also if I go with Hyper-V due to the fact that I will have a WHS do I need more.
 
ram is ram - what they needed before, they will need now. There is some savings to be reached with transparent page sharing/etc, but that can't be quantified till you test and see how well it works.
 
So Phenom II, i7, or Xeon 5000 series for Server 2008, any pros/cons to any of them?
 
For a home setup, not really.

You won't need the horsepower of the i7, but this is [H] and I say if you got it go for it. It's not an upgrade you will do as often as a regular gaming machine.

Since it's home use for Exchange, maybe a server or 2, and some Desktop VM's I will put a good guess that you may be able to run over 8GB of ram so I suggest getting a board that can support this. I guess I would recommend:

i7 920 (x58 chipset for triple channel memory)
EVGA e758-A1 or Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 (all for the SATA ports)
12GB DDR3 1600 Memory

Now that will eat up you total price and without video, so something more palatable:

AMD Phenom II X4 925 (you can go bigger, but keep the power under 95W for home use)
ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO AM3
or MSI NF980-G65 or GIGABYTE GA-MA785GT-UD3H
8 GB DDR3 1600

The only drawback to the AMD system is the ram limitation. 4GB sticks are really pricey and will blow your budget.

You could also replace the AMD system for an intel i5. It should be similar in price, maybe slightly more. Also if you go the i5 route you can get an i7 later, but on AMD's defense the AM3 6-core parts are coming too if you just feel you want more processors.

For a PSU, don't skimp, and make sure it's quiet. I like the Seasonic X-750 or corsair 750HX for silence.
 
If I need to keep the power under 95w should I throw out i7 920 as an option? Or is that requirement not absolutely necessary?
 
It's not necessary, but just a thought I wanted you to recognize. Lower watt cpu's are definately nice in the home where the Power of the processor sits below 15% 90% of the time.
 
Should the Opterons/Xeons be thrown out?

And man, you almost can't build a system these days for 750....
 
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What about this for roughly $675?

Antec Two Hundred
ASUS M4A785T-M/CSM AM3 or ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO AM3 AMD
ASUS Black IDE DVD-ROM
CORSAIR CMPSU-750HX
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (x2 for a total of 8GB)
AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb 3.0GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Processor

8GB would be 2 GB for the Host System (DNS, DHCP, etc), 1 GB for the WHS, 2GB for Exchange, 1GB for Web/App server, 2 GB for MISC test workstations.

I have a current machine with Q6600 G0 @ 4.0Ghz on water, Asus P5K Premium, 8Gb ram, GTX 280 on water, Ultra X3 1000w PSU, etc that I could use VMWare workstation to run the misc workstations if I needed. In Hyper-V, can your VMs use your actual graphics card?
 
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If you're going to build a server, get server parts. Look at the SuperMicro x8sil-f (<$200), a Xeon X3430 (about $210), and 8gb ECC Ram ($260). The board is miniATX and will fix in most cases.
 
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