Spec me a VM lab PC?

[gsk]

Hi All,

 

I'm looking to spend around £500 to get a PC to run 3-4 VMs on a Server 2012 Hyper-V. Looking for help with specs as I'm unsure where to put the money in terms or processor speed/cores, ram size/speed, hdd/ssd.

 

I want it to play about with at home and fiddle with bits and be able to start over easily, without wrecking other stuff.

 

The VMs would be a domain controller, a mail server, a print/fileserver, and a misc playing around, possibly web-facing server. Nothing too intensive really.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks,

[computer_expert]

I can recommend the Lenovo TS140. They have cashback offers too which take it down to around £220 for the quad core xeon model. Mine runs VMware ESXi 5.5 and it performs well for my uses (AD and the associated bits and bobs).

 

Stick some more RAM in it (32gb max I think) and a couple of HDDs or SSDs (up to 5 SATA devices) and you have a decent tower server for virtualisation.

[glen_j]

have a look on ebay for some old servers, i picked up a hp dl380 g5 for just over £50 with 2 quad core xeons, ram is pretty cheap and it has 8 slots i've got 24gb in mine and it uses 2.5" sas drives which are about £20 each. makes a nice vm setup, i've got two dc,s and and exchange server running on mine.

[Davit2005]

HP Micro Server N54 on that Budget with 16GB plus and a few HDD's.

 

Or pick up a 2nd hand workstation with a Xeon processor.

 

I've got 2 MicroServers the N40L and an older N36, the N40 is on 24/7 and uses about 95watts with 2 spinning Enterprise SATA HDDs. The expand options are a bit limited on the MicroServers. Mine have 1 PCIe 16x (I think) and a PCIe 1x, 4 HDD bays and a full size CD Drive bay that would give you some extra drive options.

 

Some other good mentions from people above like the Lenovo TS410 might be worth a decent look

 

Anyone got any power consumption figures for the Lenovo TS410???

Edited April 14, 2015 by Davit2005

[gsk]

So we're preferring Xeon over something like an i7 then yes?

 

Thanks for the replies, they are very useful. I'll let you know what I come up with and hopefully you lot will steer it in the right direction.

 

Thanks.

[ICTDirect_Dave]

If you want a very competitive quote for a refurbished xeon workstation the drop me a PM, I can offer you some staggering specs for very little money indeed Edited April 14, 2015 by ICTDirect_Dave
Corrections

[gsk]

Hi Dave, please feel free to quote based on the above, by PM or in here.

 

Thanks

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Righto how about this?

 

Refurbished Dell T5500 Workstation

 

1 x Intel Xeon X5650 2.66GHz Hex Core CPU

24GB PC3-10600R ECC RAM (6x4GB)

2 x New 120GB SSD Drive

nVidia Quadro NVS300

DVDRW

Windows 7 Pro COA

New Keyboard & Mouse

24 Months RTB warranty

Free Delivery

 

 

£365 Ex VAT

 

 

I've got rackable servers too but I wasn't sure what kind of space you had and what kind of noise you'd be happy putting up with.

[gsk]

I want quiet as possible as it's for home so the workstation you've spec'd looks good. What SSDs are in it? What can you drop from the price if you take off the Win 7 COA (I'll be licensing through action pack), and the KB/Mouse?

 

Thanks,

[ICTDirect_Dave]

I want quiet as possible as it's for home so the workstation you've spec'd looks good. What SSDs are in it? What can you drop from the price if you take off the Win 7 COA (I'll be licensing through action pack), and the KB/Mouse?

 

Thanks,

 

The SSDs are Kingston SSDnow V300's. They're good and reliable and come with a three year manufacturer warranty which is lovely. I'm using one in the office here and have one at home and they're great

 

The COA came stuck to the side of the machines when we bought them so there's no charge for that unfortunately. I can knock off a fiver for shipping without keyboard and mouse though.

[mikkydoos]

Have a look at some Zoostorms. They're very good. Its RAM that will limit you tbh

[gsk]

I imagine zoostorms will only have core series processors though. Are these unsupported for VMware or just not ideal?

[mikkydoos]

Depends what you want to do with your VM box.

 

If as above I don't think you need that much power tbh. RAM yes, CPU shouldn't need to be too heavy duty with only 4 VM's on it.

 

Only you going to be accessing it right ?

 

Most cheap laptops come with virtualisation thesedays. I'm VMing Windows 7 on an Atom at home sitting on Gentoo linux and it runs great.

Edited April 20, 2015 by mikkydoos