bare metal VM hypervisor on a home made PC?

[MossyUK]

I would like to consolidate all my disparate VM boxes into my old games PC. Is that even possible?

Basically, I have three old PC's running various VM's that are up pretty much 24/7. Each box PC has a host OS which consumes RAM, CPU etc and all three are old crappy ebay boxes I want to turn off to save power and free up some space. Also the heat is going to be a problem come summer.

So I am wanting to upgrade my games PC - a Q6600, 8gb RAM, ASUS P5Q (I think!) to sandybridge. I figure moving three old PC's to one is a good consolidation ratio and this should probably work if I can remove the host OS from my old games PC.

So is it possible to install ESXi or any other hypervisor OS on to a regular desktop PC? I am aware there could be a requirement for a RAID controller or off-box storage even.

I figure this must be possible though for people to practice VMWare when training for VCP?

Any help appreciated.

 

[MossyUK]

Cheers for the quick and promising reply.

http://www.microsoft.com/hyper-v-server/en/us/default.aspx

That what you're using?

It's weird but I would prefer to use VMWare - just to get a head start on doing the VCP exam I guess.

Still, this looks like it should be perfect if theres no VMWare solution doing.

Do hyper V servers need a 1gb graphics card? My games PC may be kinda overkill on the graphics card department for a VM server hehe

 

[MossyUK]

That's cool - and cheers for the heads up. I will use the new games PC to manage it, or a VM on the games machine... arghhh VM sprawl!

 

[MossyUK]

cheers all, managed to grab myself an Intel Pro 1000 nic off the bay of dreams over the weekend for a measly tenner.

I have some worries around the raid (onboard Asus P5q sata raid) but we will work through those issues as and when.

I don't want to go down the linux route if I can help it - though I appreciate the suggestion - purely because I don't use it in the day job and doing VMWare at home will make doing the VCP easier.

cheers