ESXi home server spec?

Gammawolf · 27 Mar 2012 at 23:36

Thinking of building myself a home ESXi server, does anyone have recommendations for compatible and fairly cheap hardware to use with ESXi? Looking to maybe host 3-5 servers, none of which should see any heavy usage although i *may* do some testing with hosting a local game server so enough to juice to power this would be great :eek:

. RAM wise i'm thinking 16GB will be fine, any thoughts?

jamesfreddie · 28 Mar 2012 at 19:42

What CPU power do you want?

How much will you spend?

What VM's will you want to run?

Gammawolf · 28 Mar 2012 at 21:08

I'd like as much power as possible, but really i'm trying to keep this as tight as possible.

Budget wise I could go as high as needed... but i want to keep it as cheap as possible, sub £500

Will probably run a couple 2008R2's maybe a linux distro or two but as i said, it's home use / learning environment etc so no heavy use. Maybe the max it'll see is one 24 player source server but that would still only be test use, not competitive play

Essexraptor · 29 Mar 2012 at 01:59

Have a look in this section Gamma

Servers and Enterprise Solutions - HP Proliant Owners..... massive thread and lots of ESXi users in amongst them

Personally ... not a clue about ESXi hardware specs but these guys are running it quite succesfully, so it seems, on much lower spec than you mentioned in the OP

jamesfreddie · 29 Mar 2012 at 07:10

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £169.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 32MB Cache - OEM (ST31000524AS) £87.98
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard REV 1 £84.98
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £33.59
1 x Antec VP350P 350W '80 Plus' Continuous Power Supply £31.99
1 x BitFenix Merc Beta Gaming Case - Black £31.99
1 x Corsair A50 High-Performance CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £21.98
Total : £477.52 (includes shipping : £12.50).

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £97.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 32MB Cache - OEM (ST31000524AS) £87.98
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard REV 1 £84.98
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £33.59
1 x Antec VP350P 350W '80 Plus' Continuous Power Supply £31.99
1 x BitFenix Merc Beta Gaming Case - Black £31.99
1 x Corsair A50 High-Performance CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £21.98
Total : £405.52 (includes shipping : £12.50).

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Bulldozer FX-8 Eight Core 8120@8150 Black Edition 3.60Ghz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail with FREE Deus Ex PC Game £149.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 32MB Cache - OEM (ST31000524AS) £87.98
1 x Gigabyte 970A-UD3 AMD 970A (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £86.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £33.59
1 x Antec VP350P 350W '80 Plus' Continuous Power Supply £31.99
1 x BitFenix Merc Beta Gaming Case - Black £31.99
1 x Corsair A50 High-Performance CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £21.98
Total : £459.52 (includes shipping : £12.50).

jamesfreddie · 29 Mar 2012 at 07:20

Essexraptor said:
Have a look in this section Gamma

Servers and Enterprise Solutions - HP Proliant Owners..... massive thread and lots of ESXi users in amongst them

Personally ... not a clue about ESXi hardware specs but these guys are running it quite succesfully, so it seems, on much lower spec than you mentioned in the OP

If he wants 16GB he can't use a HP microserver as they only support 8GB

olibb · 29 Mar 2012 at 08:14

Microserver! Despite only supporting 8gb - ive ran multiple game servers - well only games such as TF2 CSS GMOD etc - but even with full 25slot servers - there isnt any lag atall. Really cheap at £150 too.

Essexraptor · 29 Mar 2012 at 10:32

jamesfreddie said:
If he wants 16GB he can't use a HP microserver as they only support 8GB

see below.... he can run what he has indicated on 8GB of RAM with ease

Which is why I directed him to the other thread. As I said I'm not a ESXi expert... but reading through that part of the forum ........... it is clearly where the expertise lies

olibb said:
Microserver! Despite only supporting 8gb - ive ran multiple game servers - well only games such as TF2 CSS GMOD etc - but even with full 25slot servers - there isnt any lag atall. Really cheap at £150 too.

jamesfreddie · 29 Mar 2012 at 16:26

Essexraptor said:
see below.... he can run what he has indicated on 8GB of RAM with ease Which is why I directed him to the other thread. As I said I'm not a ESXi expert... but reading through that part of the forum ........... it is clearly where the expertise lies

I wouldn't want to run 4 server O/s on a dual core 1.5GHz with 8GB RAM.