My new homelab Hyper V server

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K0m0d0

n00b
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Jun 20, 2013
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Couple of weeks ago I ordered my home server with components listed below (delivery taking a long time because of CPU):

  1. Case: Bitfenix Phenom Micro-ATX (link)
  2. Motherboard: Asrock X99M Extreme4 (link)
  3. Processor: Intel Xeon E5-2630LV3 (link)
  4. Processor cooler: Noctua NH-U9S (link)
  5. Videocard: MSI R5450-MD1GD3H/LP (link)
  6. Power: Antec EarthWatts EA-550 Platinum (link)
  7. Memory(2): 32GB Kit (16GBx2) DDR4 PC4-17000 Registered ECC 1.2V (link)
  8. Disks(2): HGST IDK Deskstar NAS 3TB (link)
  9. USB: SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 (link)
  10. Caching SSD: Corsair Force Series LS 60GB (link)

I will be running Windows server 2012R2 DC with Hyper V role (core) from the USB stick and I will be running 10 VM's on it as listed below:
  1. Firewall (IPfire)
  2. Repo / build (Server 2012R2 Standard with GUI)
  3. Web DMZ (Server 2012R2 standard Core)
  4. Web Internal (Server 2012R2 standard Core)
  5. SQL (Server 2012R2 standard Core)
  6. DC (Server 2012R2 standard Core)
  7. Download (Ubuntu Server)
  8. VPN (Ubuntu Server)
  9. Email (Ubuntu Server)
  10. Windows 8.1 Ent Client (Win 8.1 Ent)

As for VHD storage the 2 HGST Deskstars will be mirrored on RAID 1 with the Caching SSD backed by PrimoCache or VeloSSD (still not decided, dont know which one will run on Server Core). I also have some disks lying around that I will also be adding for the download server.

Now for my question, will I encounter problems with my storage? I will set up the caching SSD with write through caching method so it will only be used for caching frequently used data (read).

Thanks in advance for the answers!
 
Using 2 NAS drives for 10+ VMs is going to be painful even with the caching. I've used Primocache and while it's a good product it probably won't make NAS drives feel fast.

Personally, since you're investing so much already, I would scrap the NAS drives entirely and just get a pair of 512GB SSDs to mirror if that with dynamically expanding VHDXs would be enough space. If you need more space, you can still get spinning disks and only place slow performing, large VHDXs there.

If price is an issue then scale down the CPU so you can get proper storage.
 
Also, since you're buying a desktop motherboard you're going to have to get cute to get the drivers loaded in Windows for the onboard Intel NIC. Have to turn driver signature off (can't remember exactl what it's called).

Instead of getting a $1,000 CPU just get a $400 Xeon (2620 v3 for example). That will have plenty of horsepower and with power saving features enable in Windows it won't draw much more power than the 2630L v3.

Take that $600 you saved and get a couple of SSDs and an Intel server NIC.
 
You can deduplicate the storage on the SSDs if you decide to go that route. Not recommended for production but physically possible and works great for home use on an SSD
 
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