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first esxi build

J

jibbonacci

n00b
Joined
Aug 21, 2010
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2
I currently have an older dual-Opteron system that I use to run freebsd as a fileserver using ZFS and providing NFS and Samba to clients, and also running a couple download daemons. I want to upgrade this box, and since processors today have more power than needed for such a setup I was thinking of virtualizing this system using ESXi. I'd like to get your opinion on what CPUs and how much memory I should be getting to run these VMs:
- freebsd running ZFS and providing NFS/Samba
- linux distro (probably Ubuntu) for development
- linux distro (possibly Ubuntu server, GUI may not be necessary) to run a couple damons for downloads and squeezebox server
- linux distro to run a perforce server and a small DB (to be used mostly for testing, nothing too instensive)
- windows 2008 server for some development work and audio/video encoding

I was looking at the Intel solutions, I'm just not sure if I should go with socket 1156 or 1366, and if I should get a dual socket motherboard (not sure if 4 cores would be enough to run the above). I was thinking either the Supermicro X8SIL-F with the Xeon X3440 and 8 GB of RAM, or the Supermicro X8STE with the Xeon E5620 and either 6 or 12 GB of RAM depending on cost.

Any opinions or suggestions are welcome.
 
Assuming this is a home system you could get away with a single dual core i3 if you really wanted to. Don't worry, 4 cores will be plenty to run those VMs.

Look for a cheap quad core CPU with the lowest power usage possible. I'm running an ESXi box with an AMD 600e 2.2GHz quad core 45W CPU. It's currently running 4 VMs using a total of 420MHz.

Get as much RAM as you can. My two ESXi boxes each have 8GB and I will run out of RAM and IOPS long before I run out of CPU.

My advice would be to build a quad core system with 12GB of RAM or more and you'll be set. Then invest in either a USB flash drive to install ESXi on or a 2.5" laptop hard drive. Then get 4 drives to run in RAID 10 for the VMs.
 
If you want to use ZFS in a vm your going to need vt-d (imo), im waiting on a vpro mobo to try this out (using the dual core i5 with vt-d)
 
Thanks guys... it's good to know that I can get away with just a quad-core CPU (and yes this is just a home system).

I guess my next question is regarding the storage of each VM... my initial thought was to simply use a single SSD drive (or a 74gb raptor that I have around) and then periodically get snapshots and store them on the ZFS (which initially will be setup as a 4-drive RAID-Z array, and later add another 4-drive RAID-Z to the pool when it fills up)
 
I can't recommend using perpetual snapshots, if that is what you're suggesting. It can get a bit hairy trying to consolidate them.

You could probably achieve poor man's VCB by taking a snapshot then SCPing the main vmdk files over some place else. That assumes you want to have image based backups vs an agent or something like that. After the copy of the .vmdk files are complete, just remove the snapshot. I've seen stuff like this done before with scripts... its functional albeit a bit clunky.
 
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