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- Oct 3, 2006
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I still consider myself relatively new to ESXi and virtualization as a whole, but I have a home project going on and I'd like some input as I'm planning on making some changes to my existing setup.
Running ESXi (Hypervisor) 5.5 U2.. upgraded from ESXi 5.0 U1 recently
Current Hardware Setup: dual 6-core Opteron 2210HE (the kind you get off of ebay for $20 a pair), 16GB DDR2, scattered hard drives of varying capacities (3tb is max, ESXi running on a WD 36 gig Raptor drive), Tyan dual socket board, surplus ebay 2u rack case, 4 GBe ports (3 teamed, 1 wan)
Current VM setup:
Everything works pretty well... some instability issues on the Media Center Extender VM, but I've since worked around those issues.
What I'm thinking of doing: Thinking of beefing up cpu/board/memory hardware, add a surveillance/recording VM for IP Cameras, add a Raid 5 or 6 with multiple 3TB drives to serve as a large datastore for media as well as surveillance recordings and upgrading to a 4U rosewill rack case that has 12 SATA hot-swap bays. Also a SSD for OS installs.
My question: Given the Media Center/Streaming/video encoding scenario above; would it be worthwhile to separate media/network functions between two ESXi (or ESXi and Hyper-V even) boxes and leave the "beefy" hardware for media stuff (i.e. run the Media Center/surveillance VM's and other possible future multimedia functions off of the beefier hardware)?
Also, for the Media Center/extender/tv/comskip/video encoding scenario above, what kind of performance do you all think I'm sacrificing by running this setup virtualized?
I'm looking for budget used/surplus hardware - looking at:
Dual Xeon 6-core: They've come down modestly in price
Dual or Quad socket 8 core Opteron: They've completely fallen off the table in price and I see refurb Dell Quad socket G34 boards going for $150 on ebay (but unsure as to compatibility issues)
Running ESXi (Hypervisor) 5.5 U2.. upgraded from ESXi 5.0 U1 recently
Current Hardware Setup: dual 6-core Opteron 2210HE (the kind you get off of ebay for $20 a pair), 16GB DDR2, scattered hard drives of varying capacities (3tb is max, ESXi running on a WD 36 gig Raptor drive), Tyan dual socket board, surplus ebay 2u rack case, 4 GBe ports (3 teamed, 1 wan)
Current VM setup:
- One VM running ClearOS acting as gateway/router/DNS/firewall etc.
- One VM running PBXIAF for my home phone line VOIP,
- One Ubuntu test box
- One headless Windows 8 VM running:
- --Media Center w/ HDHOMERUN prime (streaming to 2-3 Xbox 360 Extenders)
- --MediaBrowser/MediaBrowser Classic (also streaming to 2-3 Xbox 360 Extenders)
- --MCEBuddy (commercial skip/re-encode for recorded TV)
Everything works pretty well... some instability issues on the Media Center Extender VM, but I've since worked around those issues.
What I'm thinking of doing: Thinking of beefing up cpu/board/memory hardware, add a surveillance/recording VM for IP Cameras, add a Raid 5 or 6 with multiple 3TB drives to serve as a large datastore for media as well as surveillance recordings and upgrading to a 4U rosewill rack case that has 12 SATA hot-swap bays. Also a SSD for OS installs.
My question: Given the Media Center/Streaming/video encoding scenario above; would it be worthwhile to separate media/network functions between two ESXi (or ESXi and Hyper-V even) boxes and leave the "beefy" hardware for media stuff (i.e. run the Media Center/surveillance VM's and other possible future multimedia functions off of the beefier hardware)?
Also, for the Media Center/extender/tv/comskip/video encoding scenario above, what kind of performance do you all think I'm sacrificing by running this setup virtualized?
I'm looking for budget used/surplus hardware - looking at:
Dual Xeon 6-core: They've come down modestly in price
Dual or Quad socket 8 core Opteron: They've completely fallen off the table in price and I see refurb Dell Quad socket G34 boards going for $150 on ebay (but unsure as to compatibility issues)
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