mITX Hyper-V host?

PinkFloyd

PinkFloyd

PinkFloyd

Soldato
Joined
21 Sep 2005
Posts
14,916
Location
Bradley Stoke, Bristol
Hi All!

I'm toying with building a micro ITX setup to use as a lab server for studying at home. Initially towards an MCSA but then onwards from there. I'm not necessarily after a huge amount of grunt as none of the VMs will really have any load on them, so I have been looking at the Intel Pentiums / i3s and similar level AMD options such as a AMD Athlon 5350. The machine will likely also double up as a HTPC/Spare PC so I'm leaning towards a normal desktop machine rather than a Microserver.

My worry is that whilst all the CPUs look to have the instruction sets that are needed, I'm having a bit of a hard time finding any definite information around motherboards and their chipsets that will play along with server 2012r2. Past experience shows that often whilst a chipset will support the feature the bios often might not allow it.

Has anyone got anything along these sort of lines and able to recommend any setups that definitely work?

edit - to clarify, aiming to run Server 2012r2 with the Hyper-V role. Not standalone Hyper-V
 
Last edited:
I looked into the same thing and in all honesty, build a 'normal' machine and use a software based Virtual Machine program like HyperV (8.1) or VMWorkstation.

Ram and storage will be your only issues then.
 
Last edited:
GDL said:
I looked into the same thing and in all honesty, build a 'normal' machine and use a software based Virtual Machine program like HyperV (8.1) or VMWorkstation.

Ram and storage will be your only issues then.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, I'm just really keen to go mITX, both to save space and because I want to be kinda vain and have an excuse to buy one of those nice little mITX Lian Li cases!

I know my current mATX setup supports everything and that was a fairly low end asrock board from memory. Maybe I'll ask a few guys in the HTPC sub forum who have specs similar to what I'm looking at if they have the option to enable Hyper-V...


Whilst that Asrock board is an interesting piece of kit, it's also way more pricy than I'm looking at and has lots of features I'm not really in need of. I'm looking at mITX to keep the rig small, so that many sata ports will be a waste plus if I wanted things like teaming to be available I think I'd just buy one of the HP Micro servers.


Maybe I'm better off asking for a mITX HTPC spec, that has the ability to enable Hyper-V for some barebones testing...
 
Sory PinkFloyd, I think there's been a misunderstanding.

I didn't mean 'normal' as in full size, I mean, build a machine with the idea that a host OS will be installed first rather than a hyper visor or looking for a board that supports server 08\12R2 as the host OS.

You can still do this with an mATX setup, but it will save you lots of time overall to just slap an OS on it, and use a software based VM solution.

I spent weeks looking for a board that supported 2012 with all drivers and such, in the end.. I went with a board that was good for 8.1 and installed VMWorkstation.
 
Last edited:
If your current pc has a few cores and 16GB of ram you be fine to run a few vm. I ended up merging my hyper v host with my gaming pc.

The Asrock board is abit overkill but is something that can do hyper V and the HTPC stuff
 
GDL said:
I didn't mean 'normal' as in full size, I mean, build a machine with the idea that a host OS will be installed first rather than a hyper visor or looking for a board that supports server 08\12R2 as the host OS.
Click to expand...

Ah gotcha, my intention was to install Exchange 2012r2 and then the Hyper-V role within that, I'll go re clarify my OP! I completely forgot you can get Hyper-V as a standalone hypervisor.

PurplePhoenix said:
If your current pc has a few cores and 16GB of ram you be fine to run a few vm. I ended up merging my hyper v host with my gaming pc.
Click to expand...

Yeh I know my desktop is fine (i5 3570k, 16GB), but I'm looking for separate so I can leave it running with a server OS whilst tinkering with my main machine. Also after a separate machine so that I get the option of testing some remote storage and clustering.


I'll do some more digging, I imagine me googling mitx/hyper-v might have given the wrong impression...
 
As a rule, don't run the Hyper-V role on a server that's running anything else.

If you wanted to test HyperV, personally I'd do.

Host OS -> Virtual Server 2012 (With HyperV) -> Virtual Hyper-V Virtual machine. (Inception moment) if that makes sense.

I'm not sure if that's 100% right, but it works in my head, which I'd been told normally finds the most complex way of doing anything while skipping the bloody obvious ways. :(
 
Can't run a virtual within a virtual. Host OS will be 2012r2, VMs running on top of that.
I've regularly left VMs running on my desktop whilst doing other things, can remember one time getting annoyed at my framerate and noise of the fans whilst playing Diablo 3, to realise I had 2x Eve Online clients open then within Hyper-v about 4-5 servers :D
 
Pretty sure on everything since sandy bridge chipset has been irrelevant and you only need a cpu that supports virtualisation, which is any i5/i7 that isn't a key series chip.
 
Ah, in that case just wack 2012 on it and use HyperV but you might not get all the drivers on the host OS.

It's been years since I fired up Eve, quit at 50-60Mill SP on two chars... Accounts are probably hijacked by now lol.
 
You know I'd not even really thought about drivers. Can tell I'm rusty with building new machines. It's been maybe 3 years since I last built something that wasn't a virtual machine or a Dell laptop with a plain windows 8 build...

Cheers for the replies so far, will do some more Reading. May end up taking a punt on one of the low end amd am1 setups knowing if worst comes to worst I've got a cheap low power htpc / nas?!
 
Yes you can run a VM inside a VM... ;)

Give vmware workstation a test for a month, If you don't like it then buy the hardware.

I would look at the AMD FX8350 with the 8 cores. When I price up a Lab it will cost me about 2k :rolleyes:
 
I built an ESXi lab earlier in the year. Went with an 8320 for the extra cores and for the fact, in combination with a 990FX motherboard, it supports PCI passthrough.

I have nested VMs, with FreeNAS running on ESXi to create a vsan for the other VMs.
 
Cheers guys, think I'm gonna give the AM1 setup a shot despite being really low end, seen a few posts suggesting it can support Hyper-V and I've seen the option for virtualisation in the motherboard manual :)

If it turns out underspecced for running anything, it'll work great as a NAS/htpc. I can then buy something else. I'll report back my findings, so at least if someone stumbles across this thread I provide an answer!

Re: virtual in a virtual. I'd casually heard people saying it was possible - will definitely have to give that a go :D Simple way to play with clustering and similar ;) Although think that'll probably want a bit more grunt - one for my i5 I think :)
 
If it helps I run ESXI 5.5 lab on an AM1 MSI Board, 5350 CPU, 16GB Corsair Vengeance Ram and a dual port intel NIC plugged into the PCI-E slot. Just got a couple of VM's running but it runs great.
 
PinkFloyd said:
Cheers guys, think I'm gonna give the AM1 setup a shot despite being really low end, seen a few posts suggesting it can support Hyper-V and I've seen the option for virtualisation in the motherboard manual :)

If it turns out underspecced for running anything, it'll work great as a NAS/htpc. I can then buy something else. I'll report back my findings, so at least if someone stumbles across this thread I provide an answer!

Re: virtual in a virtual. I'd casually heard people saying it was possible - will definitely have to give that a go :D Simple way to play with clustering and similar ;) Although think that'll probably want a bit more grunt - one for my i5 I think :)
Click to expand...

You could always build a 2nd host then you can migrate VM across the host. so you have a few options with the build.
 
Sounds good Rabtech - that's all I'm really likely to do with this for now, except with Server 2012r2+Hyper-V instead of ESXI.

I've got a few friends and workmates interested in how this pans out too. So may end up with a couple of other people buying the same thing. Can work with them to test extra stuff out :D

Just got to wait until Monday night to build it :(
 
So quick update.

Machine built, server 2012r2 installed to a spare mechanical disk (still using the SSD I was going to move into it)
2012r2 had default drivers for everything, so was able to get straight onto the network. I was limited to 800x600 though, not too worried about this currently as I'll generally be RD'ing it.

Calling it a night now, but will try and post something up in a bit more detail tomorrow so others can get an idea of what these little cpus can cope with.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom