mITX Hyper-V host?

[PinkFloyd]

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

 

[PinkFloyd]

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.

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...

 

[PinkFloyd]

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.

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.

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.

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...

 

[PinkFloyd]

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

 

[PinkFloyd]

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?!

 

[PinkFloyd]

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 Simple way to play with clustering and similar Although think that'll probably want a bit more grunt - one for my i5 I think

 

[PinkFloyd]

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

Just got to wait until Monday night to build it

 

[PinkFloyd]

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.