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Server Build for Free VMware vSphere Hypervisor ESXi

K

KapsZ28

2[H]4U
Joined
May 29, 2009
Messages
2,114
So, what do you think of the build below? Anything you might change to either save money or get more performance for a VM server? I will be running mostly Server 2008 operating systems.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? VMware ESXi (About 10 VMs.)
2) What's your budget? About $1,500 shipped.
3) Where do you live? NJ
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, Memory, Motherboard, Hard Drives, RAID Card
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Case, PSU, Optical Drive
6) Will you be overclocking? No
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have? N/A
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC? Soon
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? Dual gigabit LAN, VGA
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? ESXi

Supermicro MBD-X8SIA-F-O Motherboard
Intel Xeon X3440
Kingston 12GB (3 x 4GB) x2
HighPoint RocketRAID 4310
HighPoint Int-MS-1M4S SFF-8087 to 4 SATA Fan Out Cable
Western Digital RE4 WD2503ABYX 250GB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Enterprise Hard Drive x4
 
290 ASUS KCMA-D8 Dual Socket C32
260 2x AMD Opteron 4130 Lisbon 2.6GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket C32 115W Quad-Core
270 2x Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) ECC Unbuffered Server
280 HighPoint RocketRAID 4310 PCI-Express x8 Four-Port
30 HighPoint Int-MS-1M4S SFF-8087 to 4 SATA Fan Out Cable
320 4x Western Digital RE4 WD5003ABYX 500GB

Shipped total of 1462.28

And although less ram, more CPU power up front & Ram can be upped to a total of 32gb for another 270. And I am not sure how much total capacity you need in the HDD's but the 250gb re4's are 77 and change shipped compared to 80 shipped for the 500gb ones. So its a pretty small difference for the extra capacity.
 
bastage said:
290 ASUS KCMA-D8 Dual Socket C32
260 2x AMD Opteron 4130 Lisbon 2.6GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket C32 115W Quad-Core
270 2x Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) ECC Unbuffered Server
280 HighPoint RocketRAID 4310 PCI-Express x8 Four-Port
30 HighPoint Int-MS-1M4S SFF-8087 to 4 SATA Fan Out Cable
320 4x Western Digital RE4 WD5003ABYX 500GB

Shipped total of 1462.28

And although less ram, more CPU power up front & Ram can be upped to a total of 32gb for another 270. And I am not sure how much total capacity you need in the HDD's but the 250gb re4's are 77 and change shipped compared to 80 shipped for the 500gb ones. So its a pretty small difference for the extra capacity.
Click to expand...

What would I really be gaining by using the Opteron? The Xeon has hyperthreading, so they both have the same amount of threads. Most tests I have seen usually put the Intel's in front of the AMD's when it comes to virtualization.
 
And what heatsink would you use for these processors? All I see on NewEgg that says it is for a C32 socket is a couple of Noctua coolers that aren't cheap.
 
Hyper threading inst as good as having another core. Compare the difference of 2 intel CPU's of similar Mhz, except one with Hyperthreading & one without. The hyperthreading is pretty much always going to be the winner, but not by double.

As for the cooler I didnt realise that they didnt have oem units. Amazon has some that will work fine & are considerable cheaper then the noctura's on newegg.
 
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bastage said:
As for the cooler I didnt realise that they didnt have oem units. Amazon has some that will work fine & are considerable cheaper then the noctura's on newegg.
Click to expand...

The one on Amazon says socket F, not C32. I wonder if many of them just don't have the exact socket listed. There are a bunch that say they are compatible with Opteron. This one looks decent and inexpensive, but it doesn't specifically say it works with the C32 socket.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835119091
 
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The one on amazon I checked the manu page & it fits c32.. I cant find that for the buffalo one you linked.

Also I believe this could be used to open up your possibilities.
 
You might want to read this thread about a very similar setup to bastage's recommendations:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1574476

One of the issues was resolved by disabling PowerNow. But according to him, the VMs run just as fast as his old Core 2 Quad Q6600.

So you really should do more research as to whether or not those extra cores really do make up for the lower clock for clock performance than an Intel. The OP in the above thread could have been an outlier though.
 
Danny Bui said:
You might want to read this thread about a very similar setup to bastage's recommendations:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1574476

One of the issues was resolved by disabling PowerNow. But according to him, the VMs run just as fast as his old Core 2 Quad Q6600.

So you really should do more research as to whether or not those extra cores really do make up for the lower clock for clock performance than an Intel. The OP in the above thread could have been an outlier though.
Click to expand...

Interesting, but I wonder how much of a difference it would be when using ESXi verse Hyper-V. I moved away from Hyper-V awhile ago and found ESXi to be much better.
 
I ended up ordering bastage's suggestion. I saved another $52 with a combo discount. So it was still under $1,500 with the cpu coolers and larger hard drives. Maybe I should just order another case so I can keep my other server too. It is a few years old with a quad core xeon and 8GB of RAM. Right now that server is running XenServer.
 
If all your short is a case from having a second complete server I would do it.
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I ended up switching to the LSI MegaRAID 9260-8i RAID controller, 8 hard drives total and 32GB of RAM. Unfortunately Newegg forgot to put 16GB of memory in the box when they shipped it. :mad:
 
Yeah, it's been a bad week for me. I also purchased CPU heatsinks from Amazon, but the vendor ended up being in Canada. It wasn't long afterwards that my credit card was being used in PA by someone. Of course I won't be able to prove it was them that stole my credit card number, but that was the only place out of the ordinary that I purchased through recently.
 
Sorry to hear about your recent string of bad luck man.
 
It's all good. Three weeks ago my precious little girl was born. :D

Emily.jpg
 
Thank you!

I actually found the RAM. All the hard drives were packaged individually and the RAM was under the very last hard drive that I opened. So it is all done.

IMG-20110326-00074.jpg
 
hopefully nobody thinks any less of me, but that build kinda makes my nipples hard.
 
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