Slightly more expandability than a Microserver

[b0redom]

Hi All

Currently my ESXi test lab runs on a Microserver. I'm finding it's a bit RAM constrained. Is there anything similar which will take, say, 32GB RAM. Price comes second to low power, and v. quiet as it needs to run 24x7 - it also runs domestic DNS, proxy etc.

Cheers....

b0redom

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

IIRC,the system uses a 1.2GHZ AMD dual core right??

[b0redom]

1.5Ghz I thought.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You can get E350 based and probably Atom based motherboards,but these probably only have two RAM slots, and the CPU is probably slower too.

Maybe these parts are worth considering:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-a...mhz-65w-retail

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...vi-d-hdmi-matx

The Trinity CPUs have low idle and low load power consumption and the motherboards has 4 RAM slots an 8 SATA3.0 ports too.

Perhaps,go with an A8 5500 if you need more threads:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-a...mhz-65w-retail

OTH,I suspect you might not need an IGP so this might do the trick too:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-a...che-65w-retail

It is basically the same CPU section as an A8-5500 but with no IGP.

AFAIK,Trinity supports IOMMUv2,although I have not checked if the motherboard I listed supports it too.

[Splash]

Dependent on storage requirements it might be worth looking at the Fujitsu Primergy MX130S1 - that'll take 16Gb of RAM which might cut the mustard. Review at http://www.wegotserved.com/2011/02/2...-micro-server/ - I was considering a couple for the home lab but ended up going down the VMWare Workstation route with my PC which has 32Gb and storage on a PERC5/i.

[Splash]

Also I just had a thought: are you finding yourself RAM-constrained at 8Gb? If so you can get 16Gib in a Microserver with very specific modules. Not officially supported, but if it works, right?