Few Questions for Virtualizing newbie

[Tiporaro]

Ok, so basic premise is I am considering rebuilding/building a new server (home, not corp) to consolidate a few functions, and would like to run esxi on it both to have some flexibility, and also to get some hands-on experience. Some random questions that have come up as I have skimmed through things that hopefully some people can give me feedback on:

1) As I read it, esxi license is free, although you get a limited trial of the "enhanced" version when you sign up. Anything I would necessarily need from the paid version, or will the free take care of most needs?

2) PCI-e video passthrough - yes, I definitely get the feeling this is a crap shoot on getting it to work correctly. Supposing you were able to get it functioning, is there a limit to how many video cards could be passed through? I've seen a few mentions in passing that you can only pass 2 pci-e through, but I haven't really seen this confirmed, or if this was somehow out of context. Further, would this limit/impact passing through pci-e SAS cards, other than the physical number of pci-e slots available?

3) Esxi 5 vs 4? Any reason not to go with 5 for a home based system?

4) Hardware question, although I figure this crowd would be more in-tune with server/esxi compatible components. Supermicro seems to be a favorite around here - is the X9SCM-F-O a good go-to board? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182253
Does anyone have experience or thoughts on comparing it to a Tyan in general, or one with an integrated SAS such as http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813151247 ? I had also skimmed a thread here that had complaints about the Tyan having some bug with IMPI and the IGP while a PCI-e graphics card was plugged in - does anyone know more about that, and is it something debilitating or just inconvenient?

5) Additional hardware questions - Was leaning towards a xeon 1230/1235 to pair with one of those boards. Is the IGP of the 1235 at all useful if I'm doing all administration via IMPI/KVM? Further, I'm not sure I really need ECC for my purposes, but are all of these server boards ECC mandatory? From looking at the spec sheets roughly, the Tyan linked above says ECC required, while the SM board says ECC supported - I get the feeling that I have to use ECC, but just wondering if that was indeed the case.

Thanks for any help guys - I apologize if this comes off as uninformed - I've spent the majority of my time in the desktop space, and have limited experience with piecing together server-level components, as well as dealing with esxi. Trying to read as much as I can on it to get better informed, but it feels like virtualization is still a somewhat developing community for the non-enterprise user, so not everything is cut and dry.

 

[Avlin]

1) with esxi you need a professional internet card, it wont work with realtech or marvell chips.you can't make a vshpere cluster, like VM migration

2) running fine on my computer with 2 audio card, 2 gfx; 2 usb and 1 sata controller passed trough no bugs but it is with xen.it should work with vmware

 

[CEpeep]

1) 32GB RAM limit on the host is the largest limitation to running the free version of ESXi
2) Works with a wider variety of cards on Xen. See this thread: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1668281
3) 5 as long as your hardware supports VT-x or AMD-V
4/5) If this is for home use, I wouldn't recommend sinking the extra money into an IMPI setup, unless you just want to learn the technology. AFAIK, IMPI would only be useful for managing the built-in ESXi text-based console which is pretty barebones. You can also save a lot of money if you choose a motherboard that doesn't use ECC RAM (especially since you said you don't need/want ECC)

 

[Konowl]

How about an AMD setup? Will an AMD setup be able to support ESXI 5 with one VM running Openindiana/Napp-it?