ESX server...

[b0redom]

Hi All,
I'm after building a replacement ESX server (I currently use a microserver). It has to be at least as powerful as my Mac (i7-3770).

As it's for a home server box, I'd prefer it if it wasn't massively power hungry and used consumer parts rather than uber expensive server grade parts (although a lights out card would be really good if I could get one which didn't cost megabucks).

Ideally I'd like it to be able to take at least 32gb ram although it'll probably start with only 16.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Regards....

b0redom

[Bluecube]

Depends on your budget! I bought a brand new server mobo and second hand Xeon off eBay for under £100. It's old tech (socket 1366) but it's never missed a beat and I've not noticed any big increase in power usage.

EDIT: and it ran ESXi just fine till I moved to a plain Server 2012 install.

[b0redom]

Don't really have a budget. CPU power is primary concern (I'll use this to do a bit of transcoding on this), followed by RAM (it'll also be used for building a few labs for certifications).

[shaithis]

Do you have somewhere to put it where noise isn't an issue? If so, you might want to look at something like this

Otherwise it's a case of roll your own......Any motherboard/CPU will work, the main compatibility items are the drive controller and the network card(s). Don't worry about the drive controller unless you want to RAID. Realtek NICs seem to play nice these days but pretty much any Intel nic will be supported.

[DanceswithUnix]

Sounds to me like a job for a Xeon E3 on a consumer motherboard (check the CPU compatibility list before buying). Are you bothered with ECC memory? Lots of storage?

[b0redom]

Don't care about ECC memory - it's only for a test box. Don't care about storage. I'll probably go SSD for the VM root disks, and iSCSI for mass storage if I need any.

I'd love to get a rack mounted server or two, but tbh there's nowhere I could put them. Need to replace the shed at the end of the garden, so maybe when I do that I'll get something more substantial and put a rack in there.

[herulach]

I've literally just a bought a lenovo ts140 for my new home server. Serversplus have them for 350 with 150 cashback.
E3 1225v3 & 4gb ecc seems like decent value to me

[Bonebreaker777]

I've literally just a bought a lenovo ts140 for my new home server. Serversplus have them for 350 with 150 cashback.
E3 1225v3 & 4gb ecc seems like decent value to me

http://www.serversplus.com/servers/t...70a5000kuk-ess

225 Cash Back on this bundle - Under £215 ex VAT after cash back! I think that deal just became even sweater.

Plus can take 32GB ECC 1600 MHz DDR3 (which should be cheaper than regular DDR3 these days on eBay).

[b0redom]

Not sure why that's sweeter. It's more expensive no?

I presume you can't sell the Windows license as it'll be OEM?

[Marcvs]

I use an old Socket1366 Mobo + CPU for my home ESX test server - Have a rummage on classifields/ebay and you can pick them up pretty cheap. - Max is usually 24gb ram on the 1366 boards.

[herulach]

Just installing debian now, colour me thouroughly impressed with AMT. Plug server into network, vnc from main machine to boot from a disk image. The machine itself is pretty neat, mid tower, but very quiet (and could easily be made quiter if neccessary by swapping a triplet of 80mm fans out, its a standard 4 pin connection). PSU is non standard. but a standard one could be used with an adaptor.

If you need the windows licence the bundle is better value, but I don't so thought I'd go for the lowest overall cost. I'll probably do a bit of a writeup on the setup I'm using once I'm live if people are interested? Hardly pro grade, but hopefully pretty nice for a home server

edit: apparently I'm a lemon, I'm installing debian, not ubuntu. No filthy casuals here...