Is this good spec for virtualisation lab?

M

MARKOTSG

Member
Case
CORSAIR GRAPHITE SERIES™ 780T FULL TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Six Core Processor i7-8700k (3.7GHz) 12MB Cache
Motherboard
Gigabyte Z370 HD3: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs - RGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2133MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GT 1030 - DVI, HDMI
1st Hard Disk
1TB Samsung 850 EVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
FREE Assassin's Creed: Origins with select SAMSUNG SSDs!
2nd Hard Disk
3TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
16x BLU-RAY WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW & SOFTWARE
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CORSAIR 650W VS SERIES™ VS-650 POWER SUPPLY
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1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
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CoolerMaster Hyper 212X (120mm) Fan CPU Cooler
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STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Extra Case Fans
2x 120mm Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof)
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ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
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Genuine Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Single Licence
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Oussebon

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
I know very little about VMs but the spec above seems sound from what little I do (i.e. more cores and threads = good, more RAM = good).

1st Hard Disk
1TB Samsung 850 EVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
Click to expand...
The PM961 SSD from the "M.2 SSD Drive" menu is about £20 more iirc but a lot, lot faster.

Motherboard
Gigabyte Z370 HD3: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs - RGB Ready
Click to expand...
This doesn't have USB 3.1 - or it does, but it's USB 3.1 Gen 1 aka USB 3.0. Just like the (cheaper?) Asus Z370-P. The Z370-P has 2 M.2 slots as opposed to the HD3's 1 M.2 slot.

Monitor
AOC 21.5" E2270SWDN LED Monitor. 1920 x 1080, 5MS
Click to expand...
I'd probably go for a 24" monitor for the limited extra price. The extra inches are nice - I wish my 23" 1080p monitors had just that smidge of extra space.
 
G

Ghandi2309

Member
look around as there are loads of people with recommendations on homelabs... if it is soley for virtualisation then you achieve the same with less expensive components. Still not clear on why virtualisation... is it to study and learn it? or to purposely use it.. soho setup
Do your homework before committing to a £2k spend

https://mtlynch.io/building-a-vm-homelab/ is but to name a few

If you plan to install ESX direct to the system, then make sure it is on the VMWare HCL or make sure someone else has tested it. Also ESXi was free with limitations so worth checking up on.

Spec it out on RAM as CPU's can be shared between VM's. RAM can as a well, but generally it starts to consume disk and runs horrible.

Some changes would be the Ryzen 7 as it has more cores and motherbord that can support the needed RAM. Also with money saved you could start to look at QNAP for storage to provide extra redundany and to place around with vmotion and fail over clustering.... some QNAPs will even support virtualisaiton as whole unit.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/QNAP-TS-677-Network-Attached-Storage/dp/B0777KXCP9?th=1
 
M

MARKOTSG

Member
I was planning to use VMWARE Workstation only and set nested Vsphere, 3-4 ESXI hosts, VCenter probably as VM, AD, and couple more test vms.
Purely to learn more about vsphere DRS, HA, Fault Taulerance etc.
Does Ryzen work fine with VMWare Workstation? I read some people had problems.
You mentioned cheaper components, would this be on CPU side? 4 core is min, 32GB RAM and SSD for vm storage.#I was planning to use FreeNas as storage .
 
G

Ghandi2309

Member
Have you tried the VMware HOL

https://www.vmware.com/try-vmware/try-hands-on-labs.html

not the same as tinkering but a much cheaper alternative.

If you are adamant on having your own lab, then as above, read up on user blogs for home labs as most suggest a part list. If its casual for something to play around on, then you can buy high spec EOL dell/hp desktop systems with lots of cores and RAM from ebay for buttons. Most should support Win 7 and VMware Workstation.
 
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