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Whitebox Setup

M

mikkhail

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Aug 23, 2012
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What do you guys think?

I will be running a quite a few VMs for a Windows lab (Domain with Citrix, Exchange, Clusters, testing Hypervisor Technology)

I'll also be running Linux for testing purposes (24x7) web server, VPN, and a Firewall, Xen virtualisation and any other cool functions I can find to play with in Linux.

Motherboard supports VT-D and IOMMU.
AMD AM3 Gigabyte [GA-990FXA-UD5]
AMD AM3 FX-8350 Black Edition (Eight -Core 4.0 GHz)
16GB Kit (4x8GB) PC3-14900 1866MHz G.Skill SNIPER
Network-Attached Storage (NAS) Thecus SMB
HDD Internal 3.5" 1TB SATA3 7200rpm WesternDigital Caviar Blue [WD10EZEX] x 5 (4 for the NAS drive, one for the PC)

I will throw in a Intel quadport NIC, Cisco Switch and Router to play around with...Do you think I need a graphics card? Would there be any need?

Another question is that I have been reading that PCI-x quadport NICs are supported, but you won't get maximum performance, is this correct?

Thanks,
Michael
 
Last edited:
I have gone ahead and purchased the below, do I need a cisco router thrown in, or only the switch?

AMD FX-8350 8-Core Socket AM3+ 4.0GHz-4.2GHz 8MB L3 Share (CPU) $234
Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 (Motherboard) $219
G.Skill GSkill DDR3 16GB 2x8Gb 1600 MHz PC3 12800 Ripjaws (RAM) $185
Western Digital WD 500GB SATA 3 Internal 3.5 Hard Drive (HDD) $63
CoolerMaster K280 USB 3.0 ATX Mid-Tower Gaming Case (Case) $99
Cooler Master V6GT Intel i7 i5 i3 & AMD AM3 CPU Cooler (CPU Cooler) $124
CoolerMaster Silent Pro M2 850W Modular SLI/CrossFire (Power Supply) $220
Cooler Master Turbine Master Mach 120mm 16 Blade fan x 2 (Case Fan) $65
Cisco Catalyst 2950 24 x 10 10/100BASE-T Port Switch (Switch) $49
Intel PRO/1000 MT PCI-X Gigabit Quad Port Server Adapter (NIC) $89
Synology DiskStation DS413j Series NAS (NAS) $382
WD Western Digital 1TB Caviar Blue SATA 3 6GB/s 3.5” HDD x 4 (HDD for NAS) $311
 
mikkhail said:
I have gone ahead and purchased the below, do I need a cisco router thrown in, or only the switch?

AMD FX-8350 8-Core Socket AM3+ 4.0GHz-4.2GHz 8MB L3 Share (CPU) $234
Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 (Motherboard) $219
G.Skill GSkill DDR3 16GB 2x8Gb 1600 MHz PC3 12800 Ripjaws (RAM) $185
Western Digital WD 500GB SATA 3 Internal 3.5 Hard Drive (HDD) $63
CoolerMaster K280 USB 3.0 ATX Mid-Tower Gaming Case (Case) $99
Cooler Master V6GT Intel i7 i5 i3 & AMD AM3 CPU Cooler (CPU Cooler) $124
CoolerMaster Silent Pro M2 850W Modular SLI/CrossFire (Power Supply) $220
Cooler Master Turbine Master Mach 120mm 16 Blade fan x 2 (Case Fan) $65
Cisco Catalyst 2950 24 x 10 10/100BASE-T Port Switch (Switch) $49
Intel PRO/1000 MT PCI-X Gigabit Quad Port Server Adapter (NIC) $89
Synology DiskStation DS413j Series NAS (NAS) $382
WD Western Digital 1TB Caviar Blue SATA 3 6GB/s 3.5” HDD x 4 (HDD for NAS) $311
Click to expand...


You don't need a router unless you need to route.
The switch you chose is 10/100.
The NIC you chose is PCI-x

If I already had that stuff laying around, I'd use it, but if I was shopping,
I would purchase more current components: PCIe cards, Gigabit NICs / switches.

That board has no PCI-x slots ... better off with two dual port PCIe NICs if a PCI-e quad port is too costly.

Note: I think that motherboard PCI slot is limited to 33MHz anyhow.

From another thread:

See the following:
http://www.intel.com/support/network.../cs-009537.htm

"The Intel® PRO/1000 MT Quad Port Gigabit Adapter and the Intel® PRO/1000 GT Quad Port Gigabit Adapter are designed to work in the following slot types:

PCI-X 133 MHz
PCI-X 100 MHz
PCI-X 66 MHz
PCI 64-bit 66 MHz
PCI 64-bit 33 MHz
PCI 32-bit 33 MHz (3.3 volt slots only)
For performance reasons, we recommend always running this adapter in PCI-X slots at the fastest available speed."

So in a non-PCI-x slot, if you get it to fit/work, you are limited to max 66MHz.
 
As Netwerkz101 pointed out you may not need to route..have vlans..etc...however if you DO..then this switch is great as it provides some great L2 capability, VLAN's..etc and some L3 capabilities as well.

Cisco SG300-20 (SRW2016-K9-NA) 20-port Gigabit Managed Switch
 
if it's a lab why don't you try and use cisco router emulator. Also I've used PCI-x boards in a pci slot. It works but obviously performance isn't as good.
 
I'll try the cisco router emulator if I end up needing it, but I doubt I will...

What do you guys think of Xen virtualisation? Do you think it would be possible to setup ESXi within Xen?
 
mikkhail said:
I'll try the cisco router emulator if I end up needing it, but I doubt I will...

What do you guys think of Xen virtualisation? Do you think it would be possible to setup ESXi within Xen?
Click to expand...

No experience with Xen (Free open source).
I do run Citrix XenServer (commercial w/ free option) lab
under vmWare Workstation though - no issues.

So I can only guess it should work fine for you.

http://www.google.com/search?q=xen+...3a9fa00df3ae9c&bpcl=40096503&biw=1280&bih=872
 
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