Looking at putting together a home ESXi/storage server soon, so far looking at the following:
Norco 4224 (maybe Xcase RM 424 Pro)
Supermicro X9scm-iif
Xeon E3 1220 v2
4x 8GB ECC RAM (probably samsung M391B1G73BH0-CK0)
Crucial M4 256GB (Boot and VM OS drive)
3x IBM M1015 Flashed to latest IT firmware (passed through to the FreeNAS VM)
12x WD red 3TB (running ZFS raidz2, future upgrade to 24x drives)
Intel PRO/1000 PT quad port NIC (passed through to pfsense VM)
PSU (see questions below)
Running:
ESXi 5.1
FreeNAS 8.3.0
pfSense 2.0.2
Windows Server 2012
Assorted proof of concept/testing VMs
Now on to the questions:
1. Having read around i see that supermicro boards can be a little fussy over power supplies so I am looking for suggestions (preferably from people who are running similar kit) taking into account the above spec and the following criteria:
- ATX non hotswap
- Reputable brand
- Modular to keep cable clutter down and allow me to more easily make some custom cables to power the backplanes
- Relatively quiet, though I realise this server will not be silent i want to keep components quiet where i can
- May have to be capable of spinning all 24 drives up from cold boot if i can't get staggered spin up running (see below)
2. Staggered spin up, has anyone had any luck getting staggered spin up using the M1015 with IT firmware and/or WD RED drives, i have read that using HDAT2 (http://www.hdat2.com/) and setting the PUIS feature might be an option but if the hardware will support it without any messing then all the better.
Open to any other comments/suggestions from people running similar setups.
Thanks for any information.
Norco 4224 (maybe Xcase RM 424 Pro)
Supermicro X9scm-iif
Xeon E3 1220 v2
4x 8GB ECC RAM (probably samsung M391B1G73BH0-CK0)
Crucial M4 256GB (Boot and VM OS drive)
3x IBM M1015 Flashed to latest IT firmware (passed through to the FreeNAS VM)
12x WD red 3TB (running ZFS raidz2, future upgrade to 24x drives)
Intel PRO/1000 PT quad port NIC (passed through to pfsense VM)
PSU (see questions below)
Running:
ESXi 5.1
FreeNAS 8.3.0
pfSense 2.0.2
Windows Server 2012
Assorted proof of concept/testing VMs
Now on to the questions:
1. Having read around i see that supermicro boards can be a little fussy over power supplies so I am looking for suggestions (preferably from people who are running similar kit) taking into account the above spec and the following criteria:
- ATX non hotswap
- Reputable brand
- Modular to keep cable clutter down and allow me to more easily make some custom cables to power the backplanes
- Relatively quiet, though I realise this server will not be silent i want to keep components quiet where i can
- May have to be capable of spinning all 24 drives up from cold boot if i can't get staggered spin up running (see below)
2. Staggered spin up, has anyone had any luck getting staggered spin up using the M1015 with IT firmware and/or WD RED drives, i have read that using HDAT2 (http://www.hdat2.com/) and setting the PUIS feature might be an option but if the hardware will support it without any messing then all the better.
Open to any other comments/suggestions from people running similar setups.
Thanks for any information.