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EXI build check request

W

Wing

n00b
Joined
Jul 28, 2012
Messages
34
Hey people, i am going to build a server for a vortiualisation environment.
(edit: sorry for the typo in the title,,.ESXi ofc :))

The plan is to run the following machines, mostly the software aint selected yet. I'll be probably buying a single license of ESXi insted of the free version.

the virtual machines
- Router, always in use
- FreeNas, intense use (2 users)
- Firewall, always in use
- and a cloud server (private cloud for some data of the NAS) 2 users, rare load (only for off site work)
- debian webserver for preview for clients and development space (max 4 users at a time. 2 users 3-4 hours a day load)

The base system will be running on linux

- Supermicro Barebone SYS-5017C-MTF 1U ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101385 )
- Intel Xeon 1230v2 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117288 )
- 4x WD Red 3 TB ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236344 )
- no memory type selected, not sure how fussy this board is. The plan is 16Gb (2x8Gb) ECC hynix from Samsung or Supermicro. (if not too much more expensive, it will go to 32 later)

I cannot order from newegg, need to have a company in Holland ;)


- The question is, will this system be sufficient for the tasks?
- Will there be a better option than this price wise? ( the board's chipset is a bit old,...but i dont use ssd's or high speed hdd's).

I might go for a seperate HighPoint raidcard with Raid 6, but havent decided. Dont got the model number by hand. My personal doubt is to get a higher speed network interface or a raid card. There can be only one.

(oh yhea, and i know the bios needs an update first :))


I'm happy to hear your opinions.
 
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for a dutch shop you could check salland.eu, I use them on a regular basis and have been rather happy with them.

The barebones you chose has a motherboard in it which has 2 NIC's, but IIRC only one of them (the L) is supported by ESXi, the other one (the LM) requires extra drivers.
If you are planning on using the onboard sata for RAID under ESXi, it doesn't work. As far as I can see those ports are coming from the chipset, which is only supported as straight-forward SATA under ESXi.
If you are ok with single disk datastores and hardware pass-through for the unsupported NIC straight into the router it should be ok.

Any particular reason why you're going with a 1U chassis?

I am running a router/firewall (pfSense), a Windows Home Server for fileserving, an Ubuntu VM for Folding@home and two or three general purpose VM's on a Xeon E3-1230v1 with 16GB without any issues (for other specs, see my sig)
The other host in my sig is running a similar workload.
 
Mr.Pernod said:
for a dutch shop you could check salland.eu, I use them on a regular basis and have been rather happy with them.

The barebones you chose has a motherboard in it which has 2 NIC's, but IIRC only one of them (the L) is supported by ESXi, the other one (the LM) requires extra drivers.
If you are planning on using the onboard sata for RAID under ESXi, it doesn't work. As far as I can see those ports are coming from the chipset, which is only supported as straight-forward SATA under ESXi.
If you are ok with single disk datastores and hardware pass-through for the unsupported NIC straight into the router it should be ok.

Any particular reason why you're going with a 1U chassis?

I am running a router/firewall (pfSense), a Windows Home Server for fileserving, an Ubuntu VM for Folding@home and two or three general purpose VM's on a Xeon E3-1230v1 with 16GB without any issues (for other specs, see my sig)
The other host in my sig is running a similar workload.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply :)

Salland.eu is actually the one i planned to order at. A good versatile collection of prof goods, and i like their support options.

Good point about the extra drivers. A bit extra drivers is of course allright, also it might be a bit of a hassle then with the RAID. I got the raid card number now;, it will be the HighPoint 2720SGL. Unfortunately, the VMWare's HCG is not very user friendly imho,... i cannot find either the MB, barebone nor raid card in the database. Also up for another suggestion towards the raid card, but most are very expensive when it comes to RAID 6, which I would like. The NAS will be the most important thing.

OK; checked the HCL for my mentioned barebone system. Apparently, it's more or less the same. Only difference is the casing, but the motherboard is exactly the same. Based on intel c202 chipset.

Edit 2: Apparently, the HighPoint card is supported in 4 with drivers,... so i guess they would work in 5 as well? - http://www.highpoint-tech.cn/China_new/rr271x_2x_download_U.htm

About the NICS,.. I was planning to let one NIC for inward/outward requests and one for management. However, i might need to reconsider the options, because I want to seperate some VM's from eachothers network. That's the most important role of the router inside the VM's. So actually... it might just be allright.

The router will go use one NIC for it's physical connection as WAN, while the other connection might just go into the internal network where it will serve as either management or LAN. (Thinking of InfiniBand, but i have to make choices).


the 1U is just pricewise decision, and I am kinda in love with 1/2u chassis... dunno why :)

I'm a beginner on the EXSi but have a bit of knowledge about networking... hope that will get me anywhere.

I guess power wise, it would be sufficient to run all the VM's I want.

The other topic about an esxi built is nearly about the same thing i saw, except slightly different hardware. I'm thinking of maybe changing the mb to the 204 chipset, but I prefer to see what the hardware support database can tell me... (the other SM mobo: X9SCM - http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/xeon/c202_c204/x9scm.cfm ). However.. i think that the 204 won't be much of an upgrade with the WD RED harddrives. As well, the ethernet connections won't be able to get the speeds anyway.

So the big question remains, will the Highpoint card work, and will the hardware passtrough on the not support NIC be working well enough as WAN port for the router?
 
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I would not count on the highpoint card, ESX4 drivers most likely will not work under 5 (I think they changed the driver model when going from 4 to 5).

As long as VT-d is enabled through the BIOS the passthrough will work. I have two PCI SATA HBA on pass-through to the WHS and disk throughput is about where you would expect (70~90MB/s).
Depending on your network design you might need extra NICs.

The X9SCM board you mentioned isn't much of an upgrade of the original board, in fact, it uses the same NICs and SATA but doesn't have IPMI support.
 
Thanks for the info. I've seen another thread where you adviced the Perc 6i controller. Unfortunately, there are many different versions? (saw the highpoint doesnt support hot swap). Salland does got a few in stock of the percs.

Im not into raidcards, perhaps you can explain/name me a model number? (with raid6)

Two questions:
- is it advisable to get a battery backup unit? (why would i need one?)
- i would like to add an enclosure later, 1/2/4u for drive expansion. The perc cards can have up to 32 physical ones. I might decide later i would like to add another batch of 4. Can i use a esata connection to 'powerup' another 4 drives? (with its own psu i reckon).

Any opinions? Maybe its a really bad idea :p
 
6/i has internal ports only, 6/e has external ports only (for expansions shelves). The "integrated" ones are without a PCI bracket so they can be placed inside a Dell chassis without losing an expansion slot.
When doing RAID with cache a BBU is advisable, as it will keep the uncommited writes in the cache in case of a power failure, reducing the risk of dataloss or corruption.

I am still not convinced of RAID6 with only four internal drives
 
Mr.Pernod said:
6/i has internal ports only, 6/e has external ports only (for expansions shelves). The "integrated" ones are without a PCI bracket so they can be placed inside a Dell chassis without losing an expansion slot.
When doing RAID with cache a BBU is advisable, as it will keep the uncommited writes in the cache in case of a power failure, reducing the risk of dataloss or corruption.

I am still not convinced of RAID6 with only four internal drives
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply.

I think i've just ordered an /i version :)... no Dell chassis, but perhaps i can fit it in somewhere.. if not, i return it i guess.. The wait for it is nearly a month..but will see what happens.

i do think i've ordered the KIT including a battery unit, just in case. Never hurts I thought. I've read a little about power failures,.. so that could be good.

I thought RAID 6 was a good option.... it is a costly solution, but it might just be the thing I need. If not, I might just go for RAID 5, or perhaps just raid 0,... in any case, I have options :).. what I might do is change the card for an E version to be able to extend later on. So far, 6TB+ redundant data is something I'm happy with :). In the end, i need to find out by doing I guess... it's not all that mission critical,.. and it's fun to have a go at it :)


just checked for the PERC card,.... it's a difference between 6/i and 6/i integrated, and 6/e,... there are a lot of PERC 6 cards, or kit versions... sometimes a bit confusing. I guess it's because it is mostly used as replacement cards for Dell systems in general.

I got the non-integrated one, which does have a slot. Not too bad... only I hoped once to use an infiniband network.. but for now, I chose to go with a gigabit network. Saves me a lot of money ;-),... the switches for infiniband are quite expensive.. .and I don't want to rewire the walls in a place which isn't my own :)
 
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