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My build, for virtual machines

M

mascip

n00b
Joined
Jul 9, 2012
Messages
41
Hi all,
this is my first build, and i need something quite specific. I have chosen all of the components already, but would like an external point of view.

First, the vital questions :
- any obvious mistake? (it's my first build, i might have forgotten something vital)
- will all my components work fine together ?

And then the extra ones :
- is this build well balanced? (it's a waste to have a very expensive powerful component, along with a cheap crappy component that will slow everything down)
- will it do what i need?
- are there better/cheaper components that i could have chosen?

Let me start with the exciting part : the components that i have chosen :)
Then, i will answer a few questions about what my needs are.

My choice now :
What | my choice | price (£)
CPU : i5-2500S (65W) - 120.00
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_i5/Intel-Core i5-2500S CM8062300835501.html

Mobo : Gigabyte GA-H77N-WiFi - 80.00
http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=76#GA-H77N-WIFI

PSU : picoPSU-160-XT + Univ 192W AC Adapter - 103.00
http://www.mini-itx.com/store/~picopsu-160-XT

Case : M350 enclosure - 55
http://www.mini-itx.com/store/m350

Fans (x 5) : Fractal D. 40mm Silent Series - 5 x 5.5 = 27.5
http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=54#m350-fan

2nd Hard Drive/Fan Bracket for M350 - 3.50
http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=54#m350-hdd

CPU cooler : Akasa 7106 HP - 10
http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=54#m350-775-cooler

SSD : Vertex 3 (120GB) - 90
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/16gb...n-blue-pc3-12800-(1600)-non-ecc-cas-10-10-10-

RAM (x 2) : Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 2x8GB - 60
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/16gb...n-blue-pc3-12800-(1600)-non-ecc-cas-10-10-10-

TOTAL COST : £537.00 (+ shipping)

And now, i answer a few questions to explain you what my needs are :

1. What will you be doing with this PC?
=> i don't play games at all, i don't use Photoshop.
I want to run 4 Virtual Machines (VMs) simultaneously, each of them running Windows XP or Debian. And each of them using Firefox to go on internet and do basic things, like using spreadsheets. One of the machines (or maybe the 4 of them) will also run a program that i'm making. It doesn't do much though, so i don't need something very powerful.
So, the main thing i want to be able to do is to run 4 VMs simultaneously, and i don't want to be slowed down when i do basic things.

From what i read, to get fast VMs i need lots of RAM, and fast a fast hard drive. That is why i chose 16GB RAM (1600MHz), and a fast SSD drive.

Also, i don't need much storage space : no music, no game, no pictures, no videos, etc.

And i need the Wifi !

2. Will you be overclocking?
=> no.

3. What's your budget?
=> not more than £700

4. Where do you live? (Are there computer shops around?)
=> London.

5. What exact parts do you need for that budget?
=> I don't need a GPU. I think that i need :
Processor, Mobo, PSU, Case (mITX thin), CPU cooler, SSD 60GB x 2, RAM, Case fans

7. What specific features do you need in a motherboard?
=> I want SATA 6Gb/s x 2, and USB 3.0 (required)

8. What resolution output do you need?
=> i want to use two monitors. If possible with DVI or HDMI

9. Does this system need to fit into a particular space?
=> i want it very small and lightweight, as i will need to move it every few months (to use it at a friend's)

10. How comfortable are you with custom case design/modification and electrical wiring? What tools do you have.
=> not very comfortable but i can learn. I don't have tools.

11. How important is the noise/silence of this sytem?
=> i want it as quiet as possible. I work in a shared office, so i don't want to annoy other people with noise. And noise gives me headaches, too.

12. How mobile does this system need to be?
=> see question 9.

13. Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
=> yes, 3 x WinXP

14. When do you plan on building/buying the PC? Immediately, in a couple weeks, 3-5 years?
=> within a couple of weeks, as soon as i feel confident enough that i have made good choices.
 
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You don't need 16GB RAM for Windows XP as XP can only address about 3.2GB for each install/VM at max anyway, so you'd even be good with 8GB if you are running something efficient like VMware ESXI. 2GB in Windows XP is more than enough for simple office productivity and ESXi itself uses very little memory.

If you are using ESXI, I'd recommend the Intel DQ77KB motherboard for various reasons:
- Q77 chipset is completely supported on VMware ESXI 5.x
- dual Gbit ethernet means redundant connections and/or load-balancing
- mSATA means you don't even need a 2,5" SSD so more easily install beter coolers or smaller cases
- Intel offloading NIC's will also help leave more performance for your system

It also has all the latest stuff like USB 3.0, SATA-3 (which the Samsung 830 SSD has), PCI-e 3.0,... It's also a professional use oriented motherboard, meaning it's more expensive but built to last and featuring quality components and connectors.

You are (probably) not using any sort of TRIM-supported OS, so a good SSD that can still manage without it is an important aspect. I'd recommend something like the Samsung 830 SSD or the Crucial mSATA SSD (both 128GB), use about 20% overprovisioning (leave 25GB unpartitioned). The drive is both faster (in real life, not just on the box) and more reliable.


CPU-wise I don't know why you'd choose the Core 2xxx series, you're better of taking the Intel Core i5 3330 or the 3470S (if affordable), which will be more energy efficient and thus require less or more silent cooling. Memory-wise the motherboard and CPU support DDR3 SODIMM 1600MHz, which you should be able to buy for less than 30£ per 8GB-stick although you'd only need one for Windows XP really (~2GB/VM).

Case-wise, something like the Antec ISK-series will be sufficient.
 
Thanks a lot Phuncz :) - I have highlighted the questions in this message, to make them easier to find post-reading.

I didn't realize that the H77 chipset didn't support VT-d virtualization. So, yes, i think i'll go for the DQ77KB, cheers !
One annoying thing about it, is that its video outputs are HDMI and DisplayPort. I guess, i'll try and buy a screen that takes HDMI. And buy a DisplayPort to VGA adapter, for my current screen who only takes VGA.
One thing that i forgot to say earlier : i want to use two monitors.

You are right about the mSATA SSD, and I was not aware of the TRIM issue. Your advice is precious. Now i have to choose between these two SSDs... Apparently the Samsung has significantly better write speed. And i will go for the i5-3470S processor : apparently the main difference is that it's 2.9GHz instead of 2.7GHz - for £25 it's probably worth it. (as indicated here : http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/584/Intel_Core_i5_i5-2500S_vs_Intel_Core_i5_i5-3470S.html )

For the VMs I'm thinking of using VirtualBox rather than ESXI. Because a friend uses it, and i read most of the documentation now (and started to write a summary of it, for the features i'll use).

I initially though of using 16GB RAM, in case i would be able to run more than 3 or 4 VMs (which is one per core... and a maybe core for the host?).
With 16GB, do you think i could run 2 VMs per core, without feeling much slower ? (for a total of 7 or 8 VMs running simultaneously). If not, then i will go for 8GB as you say.

For the case, i could go for the Antek ISK-300 (150W).
http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=3#isk300-150
I initially chose the M350, because it weights 1kg, while the ISK-300 weights 2.5kg. And i will move this computer around, once in a while (it could be once every 4 months, or 4 times a months sometimes)

Another (naive?) reason for choosing the M350, is that it is well ventilated, and doesn't have a built-in PSU. This way i could use a PicoPSU, which means less noise. Does this make any sense?
Or is the noise of the CPU cooler louder than the PSU fan anyway? I couldn't find noise measurements for mITX PSUs. It's less power, so probably less noise than bigger PSUs; but a smaller fan means that it might have to go faster, to cool properly.

Is there any reason that i have not seen, to choose the ISK-300 ?
Hm... maybe that i could fit a bigger and thus more silent cooler in this case.
Anything else?

Once again, thanks a lot !


Edit : if i take the DQ77KB mother board, it doesn't have onboard Wifi. Any advice for a Wifi card ?
 
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mascip said:
Thanks a lot Phuncz :)
Click to expand...
No problem, glad to help out making the right decision.

I didn't realize that the H77 chipset didn't support VT-d virtualization. So, yes, i think i'll go for the DQ77KB, cheers !
One annoying thing about it, is that its video outputs are HDMI and DisplayPort. I guess, i'll try and buy a screen that takes HDMI. And buy a DisplayPort to VGA adapter, for my current screen who only takes VGA.
One thing that i forgot to say earlier : i want to use two monitors.
Click to expand...
I just discovered the DQ77KB recently myself, when I was looking for a mini-ITX server myself. It's one of the only mini-ITX motherboards with dual-NIC's and Intel Gbit NIC's even.

You are right about the mSATA SSD, and I was not aware of the TRIM issue. Your advice is precious. Now i have to choose between these two SSDs... Apparently the Samsung has significantly better write speed.
Click to expand...
Yeah it has a better write speed but it's not available in mSATA variants. I do have to mention another disadvantage: mSATA is limited to SATA-300 speeds (~270MB/s). So it all depends on what's more important. On the other hand, will those 4 clients be writing large amounts of data simultaneously a lot ? Because then you'll have to make other considerations too. If not, the lower write speed won't be a problem and it will be handy to have the mSATA card instead of an 2,5" drive. Don't forget to look up if the case you like has enough clearance for the mSATA as it's on the back side of the motherboard. We're talking about 5mm or 1/5th of an inch here but still make sure there is clearance on the bottom of the case for it. Check that the motherboard standoffs are long enough.

Also look at this: http://www.mitxpc.com/proddetail.asp?prod=EKIQ77M350

And i will go for the i5-3470S processor : apparently the main difference is that it's 2.9GHz instead of 2.7GHz - for £25 it's probably worth it. (as indicated here : http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/584/Intel_Core_i5_i5-2500S_vs_Intel_Core_i5_i5-3470S.html )
Click to expand...
Let's also not forget the performance/watt is better and it's also faster when comparing the same clock speed.

For the VMs I'm thinking of using VirtualBox rather than ESXI. Because a friend uses it, and i read most of the documentation now (and started to write a summary of it, for the features i'll use).

I initially though of using 16GB RAM, in case i would be able to run more than 3 or 4 VMs (which is one per core... and a maybe core for the host?).
With 16GB, do you think i could run 2 VMs per core, without feeling much slower ? (for a total of 7 or 8 VMs running simultaneously). If not, then i will go for 8GB as you say.
Click to expand...
I don't have any experience with VirtualBox but what I have observed from many discussions online is that ESXi is the most efficient VM-software available. It uses very little CPU and memory and has good resource management.

For virtualisation, it's always advised to keep one core for each VM. I don't even know if it's supported to do this as the better virtualisation software (that run efficiently) don't emulate a CPU but just dedicate a core to the VM. Even if it does work and you want to have 7 or 8 VM's loaded simultaneously, running a complete OS with multiple active programs (mail and browsers too) will certainly bog down even a quad-core, even if you have 16GB of RAM.

Another (naive?) reason for choosing the M350, is that it is well ventilated, and doesn't have a built-in PSU. This way i could use a PicoPSU, which means less noise. Does this make any sense?
Or is the noise of the CPU cooler louder than the PSU fan anyway? I couldn't find noise measurements for mITX PSUs. It's less power, so probably less noise than bigger PSUs; but a smaller fan means that it might have to go faster, to cool properly.
Click to expand...
That's the beauty of the DQ77KB motherboard: you just need to give it 19V power from a decent (120W or more) power brick (more info) and you don't need a PicoPSU or anything like that because it's integrated. Also, this question might also pop up, the SATA-power cable is included and the motherboard has a specific plug for that one, which supports up to 4 drives if I'm correct.

If you are looking at fans, some tips: try to get as big in diameter as possible. If you do need 40mm fans (I need them for my mITX case), get Scythe Mini Kaze Ultra 40mm fans. I have 4 of them running at max speeds and it's still a very quiet system but they do move air because of their relative depth.

Also, cooler-wise, if possible try to fit something like EKL S85 or Gelid Slim Silence i-Plus, they should be up for the task. Depending on the case and if you have more room, you might be able to fit in a Scythe Big Shuriken2 which has a lot of cooling capacity and will also cool the other components at the same time. But always check the case's CPU cooler height and ventilation hole placement.

Is there any reason that i have not seen, to choose the ISK-300 ?
Hm... maybe that i could fit a bigger and thus more silent cooler in this case.
Anything else?
Click to expand...
It's all preference ofcourse, I haven't looked that deeply into both cases to make a really good suggestion, but it was a suggestion because I don't know if the M350 case is available everywhere.
 
About the Wifi, i'm thinking of this card (£20) : http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/centrino/centrino-ultimate-n-6300-brief.html

About the SSD:
Phuncz said:
Yeah it has a better write speed but it's not available in mSATA variants. I do have to mention another disadvantage: mSATA is limited to SATA-300 speeds (~270MB/s). So it all depends on what's more important. On the other hand, will those 4 clients be writing large amounts of data simultaneously a lot ? Because then you'll have to make other considerations too. If not, the lower write speed won't be a problem and it will be handy to have the mSATA card instead of an 2,5" drive.
Click to expand...
My clients won't be writing particularly large amounts of data simultaneously, so a mSATA drive could be good enough; and handy.
In fact, i'm not sure about the answer to this question. I need to answer with a question :
could the normal running of the 4 VMs and their OSs in itself, make the I/O a bottleneck ?

These two articles made me want to get a disk as fast as possible :
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/20...mportant-virtual-machine-performance-tip.html
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,097ce75a-838a-4511-a858-d6de8e8e78a9.aspx
But they were written long ago : HDDs were used instead of SSDs ! So, all of this might not be true anymore, and the bottleneck might be somewhere else now: CPU usage? RAM?

For the RAM, i'm going to install something to see how much RAM i usually use. Win XP 64bit can use more than 4GB RAM, but it's probably not useful for me anyway. I'm just wondering if i might need 3GB per VM, rather than 2GB. Fighting bottlenecks.

Phuncz said:
Also look at this: http://www.mitxpc.com/proddetail.asp?prod=EKIQ77M350
Click to expand...
It's very similar to what i want to do. It's reassuring in a way : it shows it makes sense :)

Phuncz said:
That's the beauty of the DQ77KB motherboard: you just need to give it 19V power from a decent (120W or more) power brick (more info) and you don't need a PicoPSU or anything like that because it's integrated. Also, this question might also pop up, the SATA-power cable is included and the motherboard has a specific plug for that one, which supports up to 4 drives if I'm correct.
Click to expand...
Wow ! That's perfect :) And it also drops the price of £100 for the PicoPSU and adapter!

Phuncz said:
For virtualisation, it's always advised to keep one core for each VM.
Click to expand...
You are right. I had read it and forgotten. I have re-read it now. So if i ever want to run more than 4 VMs in the future, i'll have to get a multi-processor motherboard.

Phuncz said:
I don't have any experience with VirtualBox but what I have observed from many discussions online is that ESXi is the most efficient VM-software available. It uses very little CPU and memory and has good resource management.
Click to expand...
There is a discussion which seems interesting here : https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=24671
Unfortunately i don't understand all of it. But think i understand this :
VirtualBox is the equivalent of VMware Workstation NOT EXS(i).
ESXi is a whole different ballgame.
a) ESXi is a OS in it's own right. There is no GUI on a server running ESXi. That machine cannot be used for anything else.
b) There is extensions to do anything from backing-up to running globally distributed cloud datacentres.
In a business currounding I'd only use ESXi because there is just no other product around that can get so many servers virtualised so easily with so many functions.
[...]
But for desktop virtualisation there's nothing better than VirtualBox!
Click to expand...
It seems to say that VirtualBox does what i need best. And the ESXi is better for bigger VMs servers... which i might want to setup in the future, but not now.

Here a review prefers VirtualBox to VMWare : http://www.linuxjournal.com/magazin...t-vmware-server-vs-virutalbox-vs-kvm?page=0,0
But these two sources of info are from 3 years ago, so i wouldn't know how accurate they are today.

Phuncz said:
If you are looking at fans, some tips: try to get as big in diameter as possible. If you do need 40mm fans (I need them for my mITX case), get Scythe Mini Kaze Ultra 40mm fans. I have 4 of them running at max speeds and it's still a very quiet system but they do move air because of their relative depth.
Click to expand...
Comparing these fans to the Fractal Design 40 Silent Series
The F.D. have only 10mm depth, while the Scythe have 20mm.
Airflow (CFM) : 3.8 vs 4.9
Speed (RPM) : 4000 vs 3500
Noise (dB) : 13 vs 19.6
So, the F.D. would be more silent, but less powerful. I think i would prefer them for that reason. But i have no "real life" experience with either brand, so i don't know whether F.D. is being optimistic with the noise measurement. Such a big difference seems strange.


About the case, i think i want to try the M350. I want to feel what it's like to have such a lightweight computer. I'll be able to move it around easily when i need. What i'm scared of is the water : with such a ventilation, one person dropping a few drops of water on the machine while it's running, could kill it. I'll have to be careful where i put it.
 
Thank for the info. I will go with the DQ77KB though, because of the power supply and double Gbe ethernet.

I just read now that Windows XP can support TRIM : http://superuser.com/questions/92984/does-windows-xp-support-the-ssd-trim-command
And so can Debian : http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=76921
It's a bit of setup, but it's probably worth the effort.

PS : i have searched a bit, and been surprised to not find a cheaper solution per virtual machine, if i wanted 8 VMs. Dual socket motherboards are very expensive. What do they use for huge virtual machine farms ? Many separate mono-processor computers?
 
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mascip said:
About the Wifi, i'm thinking of this card (£20) : http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/centrino/centrino-ultimate-n-6300-brief.html
Click to expand...
The Intel 6300 is a decent choice, nothing to add here.

My clients won't be writing particularly large amounts of data simultaneously, so a mSATA drive could be good enough; and handy.
In fact, i'm not sure about the answer to this question. I need to answer with a question :
could the normal running of the 4 VMs and their OSs in itself, make the I/O a bottleneck ?

These two articles made me want to get a disk as fast as possible :
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/20...mportant-virtual-machine-performance-tip.html
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,097ce75a-838a-4511-a858-d6de8e8e78a9.aspx
But they were written long ago : HDDs were used instead of SSDs !
Click to expand...
Understandible as the HDD has been the mayor bottleneck for a computer in a long time.

The main difference why an SSD is so much faster than a regular hard disk for stuff like multitasking is the ability to handle a lot of requests for data faster (higher I/O) and it can stream data from multiple chips at once, hence working as a 5-10 channel RAID-0 array (dependant on SSD drive).

Basically, it can handle multiples of the load an HDD can. An modern HDD can queue up different requests but it acts more like a single waiting line than multiple queues. SSD's have an extremely low latency and can fetch little blocks of data at tens of MB's per second, where a typical HDD can only do them in the single digits or worse. SSD's are also less prone to (mechanical) failure, more energy-efficient and generate less heat.

So, all of this might not be true anymore, and the bottleneck might be somewhere else now: CPU usage? RAM?

For the RAM, i'm going to install something to see how much RAM i usually use. Win XP 64bit can use more than 4GB RAM, but it's probably not useful for me anyway. I'm just wondering if i might need 3GB per VM, rather than 2GB. Fighting bottlenecks.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't recommend Windows XP 64-bit in 99.9% of the cases because it has compatibility issues with a lot of software. It also has almost no benefits except being able to give specific 64-bit apps (!) more available RAM and in general have more RAM available. But you could just as easily use Windows 7, which isn't that much heavier on the CPU and supports the new technologies out of the box (Windows XP doesn't support USB 3.0 and TRIM isn't supported by default)

Wow ! That's perfect :) And it also drops the price of £100 for the PicoPSU and adapter!
Click to expand...
Yes indeed, it saves the money you spend on the motherboard but you get a more professional motherboard in return.

There is a discussion which seems interesting here : https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=24671
Unfortunately i don't understand all of it. But think i understand this :

It seems to say that VirtualBox does what i need best. And the ESXi is better for bigger VMs servers... which i might want to setup in the future, but not now.
Click to expand...
It all depends on your needs but ESXi is indeed better for enterprise use, with the options of using paid extra software for flexibility, redundancy and efficiency. I'll get back to this point below, when you mention 8 VM's and more.

Basically ESXi runs efficiently but it misses features that you can only enable in the paid software packages and those require extensive setups to use fully. For one machine and 4 VM's, you are good to go though. You can install ESXi on a USB stick so you can always try it out that way. It's even recommended for home-use VM'ing.

Comparing these fans to the Fractal Design 40 Silent Series
The F.D. have only 10mm depth, while the Scythe have 20mm.
Airflow (CFM) : 3.8 vs 4.9
Speed (RPM) : 4000 vs 3500
Noise (dB) : 13 vs 19.6
So, the F.D. would be more silent, but less powerful. I think i would prefer them for that reason. But i have no "real life" experience with either brand, so i don't know whether F.D. is being optimistic with the noise measurement. Such a big difference seems strange.
Click to expand...
There is one factor missing and that is air pressure. The Scythe has a high static pressure (can't find specifics though) which means it can push or pull air through the case better. It's always a compromise somehow you need to make. If it's much more silent, but runs at a faster speed and still has a lower airflow, it's static pressure must be low too. I'm just advocating for the 40mm fans though, as I recently needed to quiet some hardware (3com SuperStack 3 switch, mITX PC) and these fans are the ones I'm most happy with until now.

from previous message:
You are right. I had read it and forgotten. I have re-read it now. So if i ever want to run more than 4 VMs in the future, i'll have to get a multi-processor motherboard.
Click to expand...

PS : i have searched a bit, and been surprised to not find a cheaper solution per virtual machine, if i wanted 8 VMs. Dual socket motherboards are very expensive. What do they use for huge virtual machine farms ? Many separate mono-processor computers?
Click to expand...
When you need for instance 10 or 20 VM's running with average office productivity use (Word, email, web browser) with a few running Photoshop and you need an enterprise-level setup (always-up, reliable, fast, resilient), you'd use for instance multiple ESXi servers on any arrangement of cores per CPU's per system, as long as you have atleast 1 system failure as a backup.

ESXi can use vCenter Server software which enables communication between multiple ESXi systems for pooled/bundled resources, failover and backup. One system goes down, the others step up or a spare system takes over. It's all possible, but it costs a pretty penny.

So let's take those 20 VM's as a requirement, you could get:

A. 2 systems with 2x 12-core CPU and 96GB RAM each, for a total of 48 cores and 192GB of RAM total. You can have 20 VM's with each running 2 cores and 8GB of RAM all the time, but when a system fails, it will be reduced to 1 core and 4GB of RAM per VM.

B. 4 systems with 1x 8-core CPU and 32GB RAM each, where you'd have 32 cores and 128GB RAM total. You can have 20 VM's up at all times, they each have at least one core available and most of the time two, also 4GB of RAM or more per VM.
Would one of the systems crash, the resources could be redistributed to replace the missing 8 cores and 32GB of RAM.

C. 6 systems with 2x 2-core CPU's and 16GB RAM each, for a total of 24 cores and 96GB of RAM total. You can have 20 VM''s up at all times, they each have one core available along with 4GB of RAM per VM.
Would one of the systems crash, you still have 1 core and 4GB of RAM per VM.

But basically you are clustering 2 or more ESXi servers, configurations depending on the required guaranteed # of cores and # of RAM. They can also be built more resilient by adding more redundant systems ofcourse. You'd also be needing a more advanced storage system that also has redundancy to enable this kind of resilience in the case your storage system goes down.
 
Good explanation of Server farms, and resilience. Cheers :)

And thanks about the fans too. Static pressure is an interesting spec that i never heard about, and which is forgotten in specs. I will make the hypothesis that deeper fans give higher static pressure; but apparently it's more complex than that : it depends on the number of fans, their shape, etc.
They say here that a high static pressure is mostly useful for heatsinks and radiators : http://www.overclock.net/t/1105070/fan-static-pressure-please-explain
But that might not be true in smaller case, where "pushing air trough a restrictive piece of hardware" is more important than in big cases.
I think that i will still go for the F.D. fans though. Hopefully more silent, and sold by the same shop that sells my case.

For the SDD i will go for the Samsung : i prefer being sure that my I/O speed is good enough; it will cost me a bit of ventilation loss, and thus make more noise. If it got too bad i could go back to the mSATA SSD, and find another use for the Samsung one.
And when i install the Samsung SSD, i will then be able to monitor my I/O usage, and assess whether SATA III 6Gb was needed or not.

I will go for VirtualBox for now, because it's apparently good enough to compete with ESXi (and i don't have extra-ordinary needs), and i read the manual, and a good friend can help me if-when i struggle.

I'm still not sure about Windows 7 : it's a fairly significant cost, compared to the XP licenses i already have. I'll see how adding the TRIM feature goes...
Maybe when i have a bit more money.

Oh that's exciting ! I have chosen everything, and feel like i have done so in a (very) informed way (for a first try). Now i can let it rest for a few days / a week, just to not rush; and order after that :D
 
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I'll get the DELL PA-7E adapter i think : http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DELL-PA-7...Accessories_PowerSupplies&hash=item588d78f241
It's 19.5V instead of 19V; i read on a forum that it shouldn't be a problem.
Can someone confirm ?
Not easy to find one that fits, in the UK - there is this one in US that i didn't find in the UK, here : http://www.mini-box.com/19v-8-4A-160-Watt-AC-DC-Power-Adapter

For Windows 7, maybe i could ask on Freecycle if people have spare product keys that they don't use anymore and would give away. (Freecycle is a network with thousands of people who give each other old stuff that they don't use anymore).
Any danger in doing that ?
 
mascip said:
Good explanation of Server farms, and resilience. Cheers :)
No problem ! I don't know if it's accurate for current situations but it's just a sketch of how you'd have multiple choices with their own set of advantages and disadvantages. VMware ESXi and the vSphere software in general has some really advanced (and pretty cool) features, too bad most of it isn't in the freeware package, but that's understandible.

I will make the hypothesis that deeper fans give higher static pressure; but apparently it's more complex than that : it depends on the number of fans, their shape, etc.
They say here that a high static pressure is mostly useful for heatsinks and radiators : http://www.overclock.net/t/1105070/fan-static-pressure-please-explain
But that might not be true in smaller case, where "pushing air trough a restrictive piece of hardware" is more important than in big cases.
Click to expand...
That's indeed correct: fans that are just deeper don't specifically give a higher static pressure, although it's more likely. Like bigger fans being more silent: it's not a given, but it's more likely.

It is however important to remember that in a small case, where some wires hanging around is much more substantial than in a midi-tower, airflow-constricting-wise. So a higher static pressure would indeed help. I suggest you put the fans in a pull-configuration, so they can pull the air out through the case. Something that's also more efficient with smaller cases because they mostly are just one 1 flat layer.

I think that i will still go for the F.D. fans though. Hopefully more silent, and sold by the same shop that sells my case.
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Understandible, they won't be bad so don't worry.

For the SDD i will go for the Samsung : i prefer being sure that my I/O speed is good enough; it will cost me a bit of ventilation loss, and thus make more noise. If it got too bad i could go back to the mSATA SSD, and find another use for the Samsung one.
And when i install the Samsung SSD, i will then be able to monitor my I/O usage, and assess whether SATA III 6Gb was needed or not.
Click to expand...
It won't limit your ventilation too much I think and with a propper CPU cooler you have nothing to worry about. At the moment I'm also running the Samsung 830 and I'm quite happy with it.

I'm still not sure about Windows 7 : it's a fairly significant cost, compared to the XP licenses i already have. I'll see how adding the TRIM feature goes...
Maybe when i have a bit more money.
Click to expand...
Windows 7 offers more benefits than just TRIM alone, it has many improved GUI changes and it supports new technologies. It also has a decent backup solution (even boot disk imaging !) built-in and it's much less obnoxious with dialogs, except for the UAC (User Account Control) but that's actually a good security feature as not every program can do admin-level stuff without having your approval first.

Look at this for some of the features:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL0fVuC0GiM

mascip said:
For Windows 7, maybe i could ask on Freecycle if people have spare product keys that they don't use anymore and would give away. (Freecycle is a network with thousands of people who give each other old stuff that they don't use anymore).
Any danger in doing that ?
Click to expand...
The danger might be they're giving the same key to multiple people, invaliding your or everyone's license. You can always legally get a Windows 7 image, run it to try it and you can run it as long as the trial period (30 days or 90 days when re-arming) runs.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
After more reading i'm thinking of getting the i5-3570K (77W). It's a lot faster (3.4GHz instead of 2.9GHz) but it's wamer. Comparison here :
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/584/Intel_Core_i5_i5-3470S_vs_Intel_Core_i5_i5-3570K.html
A good cooler should handle it well. And i'll get 3 x 40mm fans for the case.

The last message here, by Machupo, says that he gets 65C temperature (too warm) with a 2.5" HDD in the middle, with a Gelid cooler and a 65W processor. It's because of the HDD, but it still is warm... and thus probably noisy.

So, i might have to make a compromise between 3 things :
- low Noise : using the mSATA SSD would make it less noisy, because ventilation would be better. But i'd lose in I/O speed
- higher I/O speed : i can get this with the Samsung 830
- or slower to be less noisy : if i used a 65W processor, but the difference seems so big!

I'm really wondering if I/O speed might be a bottleneck.

But i also think i'm a bit too perfectionnist. I could go for the Samsung, and live with a bit more noise. Hopefully it won't be toooo noisy.

Edit : i think i've chosen. I probably won't need fast I/O for now, so i'll go with the mSATA. And the i5-3570K.
 
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mascip said:
Edit : i think i've chosen. I probably won't need fast I/O for now, so i'll go with the mSATA. And the i5-3570K.
Click to expand...

We often forget how much faster an SSD is even on a SATA II link than a spindle drive. I think going the mSATA route is a good call to start with and a good location for the Host's OS (be that virtualbox or ESXi). If you need to add a large SSD later for holding more VMs and snapshots you can always add a high capacity 2.5" SSD when prices go down.
 
Indeed, 99% of what makes an SSD so fast is the extremely low latency and high 4K-threaded random read/write speeds, which both don't even have any negative effect from SATA I link speeds.
 
I will definitely go for the mSATA SSD then. Cheers =)

And i'm still hesitating for the fans (^c^) I think i'll follow your advice Phuncz, and go for the Scythe. Trusting the advantage of a good static pressure in a small case.

Wow, i 3 days only, you've made me improve this build a lot, and i have chosen everything now. Amazing :)

Well, i'm not counting the weeks of reading before that, to learn about all the components and their possible features. but this will be useful again in the future, for the next build !
 
Well I happen to very recently have needed the fans, I have a similar sized case for a while and I also have very recently delved into the world of VM. In the last few months I've been contemplating builds myself, most were based on the Z77 chipset, but then I discovered the Intel DQ77KB board very recently and it's basically one of the best mITX motherboards you can have for VMware or general small server setups because of its CPU offloading dual Gbit NIC's, latest technology supported by the chipset itself (not a half-measure add-on chip), the PSU built-in, mSATA and let's not forget the solid Intel reputation.

I'd like to see how your build is going to work out. Keep us updated !! I'm glad I could help.
 
I'll keep you updated :)

I must say, i don't know how the NIC helps for VMs.
Can you use the first for internet, and the second for making a private network between the VMs? I'll have to re-read the network part of the VirtualBox documentation. I have read and annotated it, so it should be faster now :)
 
You could use Link Aggregation to have redundancy and load balancing in your network connections, useful in high-end setups. You can also use your box as a router or a proxy or other kinds of network appliances. It's not a requirement but I tend to be happy when it's possible.

My download PC for instance had a LAN and WLAN connection: LAN is connected with Gbit for file sharing accross the local network and the Wireless N connection is for my internet connection (file sharing protocol disabled) so the two don't interfere.

You can use it to give each port another or specific function, you can bundle them (Link Aggregation) or you can use them as a failover (also Link Aggregation) when supported. It's not needed for home use but it can be handy. Like the day when people had 2 floppy drives: it wasn't needed, it was just handy. But so are many things in a computer... But unfortunately on mITX your choice in dual-NIC motherboards is very limited.
 
Oooooh.... that's very nice, link aggregation. It has been in the past a serious problem when my internet connection went down at the wrong moment, or for a whole afternoon.
To rely on two networks for redundancy, that'd be really perfect for me.

One more network question. If you don't have an answer i could start a thread somewhere else in the forum.

For the Wifi card, what is the difference between getting a Centrino 6300 card
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/centrino/centrino-ultimate-n-6300-brief.html
or one of these mini cards :
http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=17

They have the same maximum speed of 450MBps.

- The Centrino has dual LAN, while these mini cards don't. Can you use 2 mini cards to obtain the same result ?

- Does the Centrino achieve this speed without antenna, while the little cards need 3 antennas ? Or does the Centrino also need antennas ?

- I'm guessing that smaller cards allow for better ventilation. Significantly in a M350 case ?

- Any other difference ?
 
The 112BN card is an Intel WifiLink 1000 which doesn't even support the Wireless N standard (just the draft version), which is atleast 3 years old. You can also see this in the Product Brief PDF files at the bottom where there is a copyright date.

That's a problem mini-itx.com has: VERY old hardware sold "as new" (don't know if it is). Everytime I end up on their site looking for something, I end up pulling out my hair at the old and REALLY old hardware they are selling.

You'll ALWAYS need antenna's for WiFi, unless you have the router and the card almost touching eachother without anything in between. The problem is you need to find MMCX-connector to SMA-connector cables (three of them) and get three antennas (something like "3x3 MIMO 2.4GHz and 5GHZ antenna"). Maybe you can find them with the MMCX connector but I doubt that.

Cables:
514285830_594.jpg


The card also doesn't have dual LAN but dual-band, which means it can send/receive at 2.4GHz and/or 5GHz without disabling the other. I have not tried if there is a way to actually use them as seperate networks, but some routers that support simultaneous dual-band (not wideband or something like that) are able to broadcast different SSID's (like the Apple Airport Extreme), but they end up in the same network.

Don't forget those mini PCI-e cards go into the mSATA/mini-PCI-e slot which is shared, you can't use it for both. Since it's on the back and so flat, it won't matter for your cooling.
 
Cheers :)
I'm going for the Centrino then. And i'll ask mini-itx about the connector.


A good thing about this website (mini-itx) seems to be customer support. At least until now, they've answered all my questions patiently and nicely. And added some useful comments.

For example, i didn't understand that i need to by the additional bracket to add two fans. But these two cannot be more than 10mm deep, so i'll have to go for the FD fans. And the third could be a Scythe. I'll try it with a FD, and if it's a bit too noisy, i might get a Scythe and compare.
They advised me to use them to push air (intake) rather than pull (exhaust).

And, something strange but good to know : on their website they don't have much, but speaking to them they tell me "we have this component and this one that you need", and the price that they sell it to me for, is a bit cheaper than Scan. Plus, they have the proper charger for the DQ77KB mobo, which i couldn't find anywhere in the UK. But it's not advertised on their website.
Example : DQ77BK for £99, and 160W AC Adapter 19V for DQ77KB & DH61AG (UK Cable) for £40.
 
mascip said:
Oooooh.... that's very nice, link aggregation. It has been in the past a serious problem when my internet connection went down at the wrong moment, or for a whole afternoon.
To rely on two networks for redundancy, that'd be really perfect for me.

One more network question. If you don't have an answer i could start a thread somewhere else in the forum.

For the Wifi card, what is the difference between getting a Centrino 6300 card
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/centrino/centrino-ultimate-n-6300-brief.html
or one of these mini cards :
http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=17

They have the same maximum speed of 450MBps.

- The Centrino has dual LAN, while these mini cards don't. Can you use 2 mini cards to obtain the same result ?

- Does the Centrino achieve this speed without antenna, while the little cards need 3 antennas ? Or does the Centrino also need antennas ?

- I'm guessing that smaller cards allow for better ventilation. Significantly in a M350 case ?

- Any other difference ?
Click to expand...

Link aggregation has nothing to do with dual internet connections.
Link aggregation is about increasing bandwidth between servers or servers and storage infrastructure or between servers and client PCs. We are talking strictly a private environment.

To take advantage of link aggregation you must use link-aggregation capable switches, etc.

Do you receive your internet connection in this server?
 
Yes, i will receive my internet connection on this desktop computer, where i will run a Debian OS and Virtual Machines.

According to wikipedia,
"Link aggregation is a computer networking term to describe various methods of combining (aggregating) multiple network connections in parallel to increase throughput beyond what a single connection could sustain, and to provide redundancy in case one of the links fails."

My aim is to use two different internet providers (this is what i call "redundancy"), so that if one connection fails, i can still be connected with the other. Yesterday for example, Virgin was tweaking the network in my area, so that i couldn't work properly all afternoon. This is what i want to avoid.

Is this possible ? Is it called Link aggregation?
 
You need something else, that's not link aggregation, link aggregation provides redundancy between switches or between switches and servers, not Internet redundancy.

What you need... well it doesn't really have a name, it's just failover, I guess you are just using private IP addresses on the LAN side in that case it's pretty easy (unless you're hosting mail or any public services on the server)

I'd recommend running a dedicated firewall distribution alongside the other VMs, something like pfsense, those are very small and very low on resource usage and have exactly the feature set you need, you can even setup load balancing so you can use both providers at the same time.

At that time if you need help setting it up feel free to PM me I like that stuff :D
 
I think fr500 means two VM's running pfSense, each one for a different internet connection. Setting them up with Load Balancing. I don't have experience with pfSense yet, so I can't tell you how.

But the forum has both a Virtualisation and a Network subforum, you can always ask about VM's and pfSense setups there.
 
No, one pfsense for all the VMs, pfsense supports dual wan, you don't need NIC bonding AT ALL.

Internet failover != link failover, you just want to hook up one NIC to each ISP, I guess you'd need a third NIC for the LAN but you could use vlans or subinterfaces.
 
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Thank you for the explanation. I don't understand everything but it points me to the definitions i have to read ! I don't have the time in the next two days but will afterwards.
 
About our discussion on Virtual Machines and processors, i found here :
http://www.exonetric.com/products/newjail.html
"1 physical CPU per 10 jails"

They told me that their "jails" are similar to VMs, and that "there's no assignment of CPU cores to "jails", all of the CPUs get shared equally by all processors."

I might try this, and later compare the speed with my own VMs.
 
And one about running more than 1 VM per core, here :
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1039375220&posted=1#post1039375220
where someone answered :
"You can share physical cores with multiple VMs...else people would be very limited on consolidation. It all depends on how active those VMs are. For example, in my lab I run VMware's vCenter Operations Manager to monitor performance and it gives me estimates on what my "optimal" density is. Since my VMs aren't real busy I can actually go 24:1 vCPU:CPU. You can go very dense."
 
Thanks :)

One possibly important point to watch out for : their disk was performing badly at first, because they hadn't installed the Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver.

If i bought it from them (here : http://aleutia.com/relia-fanless-industrial-server), it would have cost me £1000 (with 16GB RAM, 218GB disk, i7 CPU). I bought my components for a total or £550 :D And they (almost all) arrived today, so i'll probably try to build it tomorrow :) The Scythe fan will arrive later in the week, as well as the Wifi card.

I'm going with a faster processor than them, and with 3 fans. Also, they're using the Intel cooler, while i got a (hopefully better) Akasa. I'll tell you about the noise.
 
Yeah I'm certainly interested about your build. If possible, make some pictures of the inside and the outside, I would be grateful.
 
Ah, it's raging !
The RAM that i bought is DIMM, while this mobo only take SODIMM...
Hopefully i'll get a refund, or manage to sell it back on Amazon or something :-/
We'll have to wait a bit more to see this computer mounted.
 
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You should look if the cooler has some supplied (or applied), most of them do but check anyways.
 
Hi there :)

i had ordered the wrong type of RAM (DIMM / SoDIMM),
and the cable that goes from the front of the case (for the Power LED, and others) was not long enough to reach the PINs on this mobo, so i had to order a longer one.

Plus, i have been quite busy with other things. I will probably build it next Tuesday. Sorry for keeping you waiting.
 
No problem, glad to hear you are getting everything worked out. Mini-ITX requires a lot more patience than ATX because of the little details that have to be right, like the cables. In a standard case, you can fudge them somewhere if they're too long, in an mITX case too much cable is a problem.
 
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