New Homelab addition (1 Viewer)

[Rickboy]

It's been eight years since I built my VMware homelab with HP servers that the company gave me. Now I work for VMware and I need a lot more horsepower so I've retired one of my DL185s and replaced it with a Dell R720xl. This lets me upgrade to vSphere 6.5, gives me 96GB of RAM and 20 cpu cores to play with. I have four SSDs on order, which will eventually become a VSAN when I buy a 2nd R720xl. Right now all storage is on a QNAP NAS and a couple of SSDs I added to the HP server. I also took the RAM from my old HP server and added to the remaining one to give me 80GB there.

For now I'm running vSphere 6.5, the full Horizon 7.4 suite. I have an Airwatch and identity manager cloud tenant as well. Next up is a full vRealize deployment along with integration with AWS and Azure.

Besides training, I've been using this for customer demos. I can take a brand new Dell Win10 laptop and fully integrate it into my environment with Unified Endpoint Mangement with minimal effort. CTOs really love seeing how easy it is.

Anyways, thoughts, questions, snide remarks? Anyone else heavy into VMware solutions?

 

[zeetes]

i have a desktop running vmware workstation.

 

[robsmith32]

we really need to talk about your cable management, or lack of...
lol

 

[Charlie Brizzown]

Server porn.

I've got a Dell R610 with 12 CPU cores, 96GB ram, running ESXi 6.0. I'm not really a server/virtualization guy, I just use it to run my network/security related VMs and labs.

That thing sucks up energy likes it's nobody's business.

I've got another model Dell stuffed in a closet somewhere with 12 cores and 36GB ram. I think it had a single 7K RPM disk in it. Slow as molasses, but I didn't want to upgrade the disk. Plus, if I remember correctly the thing sounds like a jet engine.

 

[Rickboy]

This Dell is surprisingly quiet after startup. At least it is a helluva lot quieter than the DL185. Fortunately I have a basement to keep it in so it's not really a big deal.

 

[Rickboy]

An update.

I retired one of the DL185s and put all of its memory into the remaining HP server for 80GB total.

I got 4x Samsung 512GB 850pro SSDs for the Dell server and two 256 drives for the HP server. The Dell is setup for RAID5 (for capacity) and the drives in the HP are just RAID 0. The HP server is just for desktops and RDSH serers, which are instant clones. The master images for them are on my QNAP NAS along with any user profiles. So RAID0 is just fine for that. With this config, I was able to scale out from 1 to 20 RDSH servers in less than 30 seconds.

 

[Charlie Brizzown]

Good god man. Speedy lab you got going there.

I was happy when I put one 500GB Samsung 850 EVO in mine.

 

[jumpingoff]

Can anyone reccommend a (used) tower model that isn't too loud but w/ decent horseppower? I have been using my laptop w/ workstation and gns3 for the last few years but it bogs down on anything more than 5 vms.

 

[Rickboy]

Good god man. Speedy lab you got going there.

I was happy when I put one 500GB Samsung 850 EVO in mine.

I looked into the 850EVO but the latency really ramps up at a certain point. They performance isn't even close to the PROs. It's such a big difference I wonder if Samsung's firmware is throttling the EVO SSDs.

That said, the EVO is still vastly faster than any spindle based HD.

Can anyone reccommend a (used) tower model that isn't too loud but w/ decent horseppower? I have been using my laptop w/ workstation and gns3 for the last few years but it bogs down on anything more than 5 vms.

dellrefurbished.com sometimes has Xeon powered workstations for sale. Some of them come with two sockets. Many even come with a GPU. My 2nd ever vSphere lab was based on that.

Here are some Dell T5610 refurbs for sale: https://www.dellrefurbished.com/computer-workstation?filter_category=307&filter_processor_brand=375

Most of those listed have a single Xeon CPU but can be upgraded to dual CPU.

I also recommend signing up for their refurb emails. They send out coupon codes every so often. That's how I got about $600 off my server.

 

[Rickboy]

Well speak of the devil.. Dell Refurbished just released a 40% off coupon. Coupon Code Lucky40Sale

The Code doesn't work on those 5610 workstations I mentioned, but those are already on clearance. It works on other workstations like the T5810. The code is only good for today. I wish it worked with Servers. I'd love to buy another one so I can have a VSAN.

 

[jumpingoff]

Thanks Rickboy!