• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Quick ESXi questions

F

Franko

Weaksauce
Joined
Jan 17, 2009
Messages
121
I am looking into dipping my toes into the virtualization pool for an upcoming home server storage build (with more vm's to come as I get comfortable) and am hoping somebody could help me with a few questions about ESXi before I buy hardware.

A little info: I am considering an entry level socket 11155 system but due to the cost associated with 8g unbuffered ecc ram it seems that I can get more bang for the buck by going with either a socket 2011 Xeon or a 1p or 2p opteron 4k system.

1) Is the 32g of ram limit for how much ram can be allocated per single vm or for all the vm's combined?

2) I don't see limit on cpu's or physical cores. Is there a limit and if so is it based on per vm or per server?


Thanks for your time,

P.S. I am primarily a windows based hobbyist to give you an idea of my skill level.
 
You can build a socket 1155 system without using ECC RAM, go into the virtualization sub thread, there are plenty of build examples in there including mine. If you are using the free version of ESXi then yes I believe 32GB is the MAX ram you can configure for the host, I don't believe there is any limits on the number of CPU's.
 
+1 to everything ashman said.

I just did a xeon e3-1230 build with supermicro X9SCM-F-O and I only used 16gb RAM. I was more concerned with getting the Xeon and server grade hardware so that I can play around with all the "advanced" features of ESXi, but the primary purpose of it will be to run a couple windows servers for file/media sharing at my house. 16 gigs was fine for me, when the 8 gig sticks get cheap ill probably throw some in.....or just build another server!
 
If your willing to give up ECC the Intel BOXDQ67SWB3 workstation board is great. You can load it up with 32 GB DDR3 very economically and drop in an i5 2500 or i7 2600 (non-k) and still have fully supported Vt-d passthrough. The board also supports Vpro which is very similar to IPMI and with Real VNC plus allows remote KVM.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. I was hoping to use ecc and server class hardware as I am kinda paranoid about my data. The suggestion about the vpro board is kinda appealing but id have to buy an expander.

Thanks for the food for thought.
 
Go with LGA2011 Xeons--gives you reg ECC support and advanced features like DIMM mirroring, patrol scrubbing etc. Plus IPMI is just sexy.

A bare system (no HDDs, no add-in cards) with a single E5-2609 in my case draws around 40W idle.

The entry cost is high, but upgradability and features are awesome.
 
TCM said:
Go with LGA2011 Xeons--gives you reg ECC support and advanced features like DIMM mirroring, patrol scrubbing etc. Plus IPMI is just sexy.

A bare system (no HDDs, no add-in cards) with a single E5-2609 in my case draws around 40W idle.

The entry cost is high, but upgradability and features are awesome.
Click to expand...

Which motherboard are you using? I am considering a Supermicro X9SRA or Supermicro X9SRE-F. The X9SRA is about $80 cheaper on newegg but lacks IPMI. The X9SRE-F is about $430 on newegg but is a beast.
 
Franko said:
Which motherboard are you using? I am considering a Supermicro X9SRA or Supermicro X9SRE-F. The X9SRA is about $80 cheaper on newegg but lacks IPMI. The X9SRE-F is about $430 on newegg but is a beast.
Click to expand...
Actually, X9DR3-F with one CPU right now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top