Spec me a home server for VMs

ringo747 · 7 Feb 2011 at 16:18

I'm planning on building a home box to use for some of my SharePoint stuff. I will want the ability to run up to 4 VMs at one time

SharePoint front end
SQL Server
DC
Windows 7 development box

I reckon it will need about 8GB of RAM for that.

What kind of specs should I be looking at? What is the best disk layout for this? It is ok just to stick them all on one disk?

ringo747 · 7 Feb 2011 at 21:43

Thanks guys - definitely will be going for 8GB RAM minimum but maybe 12 would be even better.

Vince I will be doing a full farm installation and want to keep SQL VM separate as plan on doing some SSRS stuff too. I want to be able to clone a basic WFE and then be able to add extra instances for testing if need be.

It will only ever be one user doing anything but I'm well familiar with how big a beast it is to run well!

ringo747 · 7 Feb 2011 at 23:29

I also need to know what hypervisor to use - esxi is the only one I have really heard of.

ringo747 · 8 Feb 2011 at 00:14

I probably would like to be able to use it as normal PC too but if it is better performance running only hypervisor then I would probably do that.

ringo747 · 8 Feb 2011 at 10:13

If I had 12GB RAM would it allow me to run a full OS as the host?

At the moment I am running SharePoint on a VM on laptop with 5GB assigned to SP and another DC VM running with 1GB. It is fairly sluggish to say the least!

Ideally I don't want to pay anything for the OS so I can either use MS stuff from MSDN account or free VMWare.

ringo747 · 8 Feb 2011 at 10:53

OK so if I look at the AMD 6 core processors what mobo and RAM can I put with them? Would you recommend overclocking? I would try and aim for 12GB RAM if that is possible but it might limit any overclock.

If someone would be so kind to spec me something that would be great.

ringo747 · 8 Feb 2011 at 11:02

I can get cheap prices on HP gear - would it be worth looking at some cheap servers from them?

ringo747 · 8 Feb 2011 at 11:15

Any particular models worth a look?

ringo747 · 10 Feb 2011 at 21:57

Thats helpful ecksmen. I think a 6 core AMD will do me along with 8/12GB RAM and a few smallish disks RAIDed.

I will be running a DC/Exchange box so it shouldn't be using many resources. SQL and SharePoint will be somewhat different but it will only be single user stuff so not massive usage.

Is ESXi funny with NICs or are most generally supported?