K
kingrob
Guest
Hehe... you don't install a client OS on a Dell PowerEdge server!
Server hardware is designed to work optimally with server software, like Ubuntu, CentOS server, Windows Server 2008, 2012.
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Home Server to run Virtual Machines
- Thread starter Duan
- Start date
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- Tags
- hardware hypervisor server vmware
Hehe... you don't install a client OS on a Dell PowerEdge server!
Server hardware is designed to work optimally with server software, like Ubuntu, CentOS server, Windows Server 2008, 2012.
Duan
Senior Member
Well I would agree with you, but that is why I installed ESXi as the base OS right and installed Windows 7 as a virtual machine.
Does that make more sense?
It seems to work pretty well. It is very responsive and boots up in no time.
Does that make more sense?
It seems to work pretty well. It is very responsive and boots up in no time.
K
kingrob
Guest
Oh, ok....so you are installing the VMs now.
Cool, that server should handle a lot of VMs very well.
Duan
Senior Member
Well it certainly handles the one win7 without any issues.
grim
Expert Member
No point in installing ESX on an SSD, it get's loaded to memory on boot from the disk and stays there. You can install it on a flashdisk or an SD card if you want to.
You can even order some Dell servers now with an internal SD card slot specifically for this purpose.
What you could do though is dedicate a SSD drive as a scratch drive for ESX which will improve performance if you are running in a memory contended environment.
Duan
Senior Member
There is one serious problem...
The 2900 makes way to much noise. In fact, it also heats up my study rather significantly.
May be a bit overkill. Maybe I should have gone for something a little smaller...
The 2900 makes way to much noise. In fact, it also heats up my study rather significantly.
May be a bit overkill. Maybe I should have gone for something a little smaller...
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kingrob
Guest
LOL... order a proper cabinet for it and mount it in the garage?
The_Ogre
Honorary Master
I was going to point that out to you
And wait until the electricity bill arrives too
yeah! lol!
I use proxmox at work. it's totally free and easy to use. build in backup works like a charm. Works much better than vmware for me. http://www.proxmox.com/
I run ESXi 5.0 on my HP MS with multiple VMs (downloading, NAS, firewall) and the HP MS copes just fine. I do however caution the OP as the HP MS does not have hardware passthrough, meaning you will need to create .vmdk files spanning the entire disks, and then the relevant FS within it. (i.e. NTFS windows, EXT4 *nix, ZFS NAS). This makes hdd swapping particular troublesome and I've found in my second attempt that splitting out the NAS onto its own HP MS drastically simplified my life.
If you follow this route, you install ESXi onto and run it from a USB flash.
If you follow this route, you install ESXi onto and run it from a USB flash.
Duan
Senior Member
Nelis,
I am trying out Proxmox, but I must be honest... it is a bit of a pain so far.
I battled for hours to get it installed. For some reason it would not read one of the files on the CD. Who knows why?
Finally got it installed and now trying to configure it and setup a VM with win7.
Funny, but it does not want to use the CD in the server to install, so now I first have to make an ISO and then upload that to the storage.
I will reserve judgement...
I am trying out Proxmox, but I must be honest... it is a bit of a pain so far.
I battled for hours to get it installed. For some reason it would not read one of the files on the CD. Who knows why?
Finally got it installed and now trying to configure it and setup a VM with win7.
Funny, but it does not want to use the CD in the server to install, so now I first have to make an ISO and then upload that to the storage.
I will reserve judgement...
Duan
Senior Member
Ok so a bit of an update... I have ditched proxmox and reverted back to esxi 5.1 it just works better for me.
I have sourced an additional cpu and heatsink for R400 which is on its way. Also ordered some drive caddys so that I can slot in some cheaper sata storage.
Also Upgraded most of the firmware.
I am still looking for some drive caddys, front bezel and ram for the Dell Poweredge 2900 if anyone has spare junk lying around.
Also anyone looking to throw out an old cabinet...plz.
I have sourced an additional cpu and heatsink for R400 which is on its way. Also ordered some drive caddys so that I can slot in some cheaper sata storage.
Also Upgraded most of the firmware.
I am still looking for some drive caddys, front bezel and ram for the Dell Poweredge 2900 if anyone has spare junk lying around.
Also anyone looking to throw out an old cabinet...plz.
K
kingrob
Guest
You don't need a Dell server to do that.
I've got a simple Core i3 desktop with 8GB RAM & running four Windows Server 2008 R2 VMs at the same time, no problemo.
The only reason why you might want to get a server for home use, is because you lack experience with server hardware and not sure how everything works.
K
kingrob
Guest
You don't need a Dell server to do that.
I've got a simple Core i3 desktop with 8GB RAM & running four Windows Server 2008 R2 VMs at the same time, no problemo.
The only reason why you might want to get a server for home use, is because you lack experience with server hardware and not sure how everything works.