Modest VM Hosts

[USMCGrunt]

Hey guys, I've currently got a two node cluster running here at home that I do basic testing and learning on. Each is running a 2nd gen. i5, 16GB of RAM and Hyper-V Server. I'd really like to upgrade them but don't have a ton of cash to spend, anybody have any suggestions as to what would give me really good bang for my buck?

 

[Avalanche]

You missed out on the Dell T20 for $250 deal.

What's your budget?

 

[Eulogy]

What is currently holding you back? If anything, I'd probably just be looking at adding much more RAM, but that's for my use.

 

[BlueLineSwinger]

What is currently holding you back? If anything, I'd probably just be looking at adding much more RAM, but that's for my use.

Yeah, for home use I'd generally agree. Over-subscribing cores is usually not much of an issue, but doing so with RAM is almost always not good.

If you really need more cores or even more RAM you may be able to pick up some old Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge E/EP systems for relatively cheap.

 

[USMCGrunt]

RAM is definitely a limiting factor. I'm learning and testing Exchange 2013 in preparation of migrating the system at work from 2007. I've just barely managed to shoehorn in a DC, two mailbox servers, two cas servers, and a virtual load balancer. I'm not looking to spend gobs of money, but I'm not sure these motherboards support anything more than 16GB, I'd have to look them up to be sure. I know ive definitely got the CPUs over subscribed but the VMs sit idle 99% of the time and do an ok job on responsiveness. I've done some poking around and, besides RAM, I may be looking at my storage device more closely as the real performance bottleneck. Thanks for the input guys.

 

[HammerSandwich]

Sell 1 of your systems & get a Sandy E5. 8x8GB registered is about $125, at least for 10600. And when you're ready for a storage upgrade, you'll have fat PCIe compared to an i5.