Home ESXi Server (with complications) Help.

[nixonphilip]

Hey Guys,

I need help with the spec / complications I have.

I am looking to build a home ESXi server. But I only have wireless at home. Would it work with a wireless extender into the mains then cable from there to server?

I have a tower PC which I would like to keep so unable to turn that into a server.

Spec I have around 400 - 500 to spend. I was looking on Amazon at an HP Microserver but I would like to build myself.

Any help will be much appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Little_Crow]

If you're doing a self build make sure you check the ESXi compatibility matrix, particularly for the NIC. It's fairly unusual for the chipset on PC motherboards to be supported so you'll have to buy an additional NIC - Intel e1000's being a common choice.

If you plan to do RAID you may have similar problems with motherboard based controllers, so be aware of this too.

But as to your first question, yes, as long as the server has a wired connection there should be no issue.

 

[randal]

In this situation in the past I've grabbed an old router and flashed DD-WRT/OpenWRT on to it and set the router up as a wireless client to the existing wifi network.

It gives you local gigabit, and whatever wifi speed you get uplink to the rest of the network. Plus you have an additional device that can do firewalling/NAT/filtering etc in front of your ESXi host.


With regards to machine choice and ESXi I'd go with a tried and tested over a homespun setup (particularly as Little Crow says when it comes to NICs and disk controllers), something like a Gen8 Microserver or a Dell T20 would be ideal for this. Sure you don't get to build it per se, but there's always upgrades and modifications to tide you over.