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gsm
join:2009-03-10
144-0052

gsm

Member

upgrading my pc

I am thinking its time to upgrade my pc. Can someone take a look at the following parts and let me know if it will work. I am mainly upgrading because my current pc cant run Hyper-V I am about to start studying it soon. I also do light to moderate gaming I am trying to switch back to pc gaming. I need a motherboard that has a TPM on it as I want to try and get some bit locker experience it is also part of my labs that I need to do for studying. For hyper-v is 16gb of ram enough or do I need 32GB?

Mother Board:
»www.newegg.com/Product/P ··· 13131934

Cpu:
»www.newegg.com/Product/P ··· 19116501

Ram:
»www.newegg.com/Product/P ··· 20231589
JoelC707
Premium Member
join:2002-07-09
Lanett, AL

JoelC707

Premium Member

This probably isn't the right place for this question but I'll bite. Do you need the Directed I/O support (Vt-d or IOMMU)? Now that I think about that, I'm not sure Hyper-V supports that anyway. Nearly all current gen CPUs/motherboards support virtualization. As for RAM requirements, that's going to depend on how many virtual machines you intend to have running at the same time.

I can tell you I have three servers (two ESXi - 16GB each, one hyper-v - 12GB). The two ESXi systems could consolidate down to one server if necessary and maybe need a couple extra gigs of RAM (about 8-9GB used per system). The Hyper-V system has about 6ish GB used. In all of these I have several DCs, file server, backup server, SQL, Exchange, and various remote access systems (server 2008, XP). It's a total of 15 VMs, all of this running in about 24GB of RAM.

jay608
Going Nucking Futs
join:2007-01-22
Homewood, IL
(Software) pfSense
Netgear CM1000
Zoom 5341J

jay608 to gsm

Member

to gsm
When it boils down to RAM, you have to ask yourself how many Hyper-V sessions you are going to run at one time, and how much ram you are going to give each one. What are you going to be running besides those at the same time. etc.

If you want to give 2 Domain controllers each 4GB, there's half of your RAM right there.

Now at home I have a ESXi system that is running I think 7 vms running on 16gb of memory and I can feel the effects. The board can hold 32, just haven't gotten it yet.

exocet_cm
Writing
Premium Member
join:2003-03-23
Brooklyn, NY

exocet_cm to gsm

Premium Member

to gsm
Just with those three components you're at $747.00. Have you considered a dedicated server platform to run virtual machines in and nix the gaming? I just recently bought an HP DL 380 G5 system on eBay and it is running ESXi 5.1 with 5 VMs 24x7 (3x server 2008 R2 and 2x Linux) and I'll import pre-configured test VMs on a regular basis. At 16GB I'm running out of RAM and about to put in 32GB.

We use Precision T5500 systems at work with 8GB of RAM and Xeon E5606 processors. Although we purchased ours brand new, you can find some decent systems for $600.00ish on eBay. It has TPM 1.2 and two Nvidia Quadro NVS 295 graphics cards. I'm running VMware Workstation without issue. The NVS 295 probably wouldn't cut it for gaming. I would get an NVS 510 (but this is coming from somebody who plays Starcraft II, been out of the gaming circuit for a while).
gsm
join:2009-03-10
144-0052

gsm

Member

No I have not considered a dedicated server platform. Can you post the link to the one you got on e-bay. I think it might be overkill for me so I think I will just upgrade my pc. I think I will go with 32gb of ram given the price of ram i can afford it. I am doing the MCSE 2012 private cloud track but I am doing the mcsa windows server 2008 first and doing the upgrade path to private cloud. I think I will need at least 4 to 5 hyper-v sessions maybe 8 at most for windows 7 client computers.
JoelC707
Premium Member
join:2002-07-09
Lanett, AL

JoelC707

Premium Member

What are your current PC specs? What games do/will you run? If you've got an older computer that would need upgrades anyway to run the games you want then that's one thing. If you just need a beefier GPU, you'd be better off getting that GPU and a server to do your study work on.

If you get a server, I would NOT recommend a 1U server. They are quite loud due to the small fans. A 2U or larger server would be better as they can use 80mm or larger fans. Sure they can still be loud when they spin up but it won't be anything like a 1U server.

I would normally recommend 2GB minimum for Windows 7 but in a VM and if they aren't used as a desktop, then 1GB would probably be good. Since it is mostly for testing and learning, 1GB is also generally sufficient for servers and even sometimes more than enough. 8 session at 1GB each, well you can do the math and 16GB should be more than enough and have plenty of headroom.

I'm partial to Dell personally. My servers I mentioned above are 2950 III's and one 2950 II. The main difference is the II uses 1st gen Intel CPUs (5100/5300 series) and the III uses the second gen CPU (5200/5400 series). The downside is they use FB-DIMM memory which isn't as cheap as DDR3 but many systems on ebay have 16GB already anyway.

Both models can come in 2.5" or 3.5" form factor for drives and do accept commodity SATA disks. Given this is just for personal use and testing, SATA is probably just fine and will be cheaper than SAS drives. If you give each of the 8 VMs 40GB thick provisioned, you'd use up 320GB, so use that as a basis for storage needs.

Here's a 2950 III with 8x 73GB 2.5" SAS drives. »www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Po ··· 6c7b306b That would give you ~500GB in RAID 5 or ~300GB in RAID 10. Either option should give you enough storage space for your needs.

Here's a similar 2950 III with 2x 146GB 3.5" SAS drives. »www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Po ··· cfca5955 Use these in RAID 1 for the host OS and add in as many SATA drives in the remaining 4 3.5" bays as you need/want for VM storage.

As for the seller I picked, I've bought things from them before and they've always been a pleasure to deal with. They're local to me so I haven't seen what their shipping skill is like unfortunately. Either of these choices is less than your listed computer upgrades so that to me makes it worth the investment as you aren't using your computer to do the work on. You'd need to install Server 2008/2012/Hyper-V Server to run Hyper-V and that may not play well with games anyway making your original idea possibly a no-go (especially with Hyper-V server).
gsm
join:2009-03-10
144-0052

gsm

Member

Thanks for the information I will have to think about this some more. I would like to get some lab time on dell server as I can put that on my resume but I dont think I can just stack something like that on my desk unless I am wrong otherwise I will consider it. As for a gaming machine once I am done with my mcse 2012 private core I will reformat my pc and put windows 7 ultimate on it. I would only use windows server 2008 r2 as long as I am studying

exocet_cm
Writing
Premium Member
join:2003-03-23
Brooklyn, NY

1 edit

exocet_cm

Premium Member

Don't get anything below a "G5" model. As JoelC707 See Profile said, if you can get a 2U or larger server, preferably a tower, do it. This G5 is loud as a jet but I also have dedicated rack space at my house so it isn't an issue for me.
»www.ebay.com/sch/i.html? ··· re&rt=nc

I run Hyper-V on two Dell PowerEdge T300 servers as well. They are entry-level tower servers and do a decent job of virtualization. You won't be playing games on em though.
»www.ebay.com/sch/i.html? ··· from=R40

If you can afford it, I would recommend you get two separate systems. One for gaming/workstation use and one dedicated to your VMs and server "stuff". It would really suck to have a game lockup your system, hard reset, then find out it corrupted your virtual machines. Just my two cents.
gsm
join:2009-03-10
144-0052

gsm

Member

Where can I get a rack for something like that so I can dedicate some space for it

exocet_cm
Writing
Premium Member
join:2003-03-23
Brooklyn, NY

exocet_cm

Premium Member

said by gsm:

Where can I get a rack for something like that so I can dedicate some space for it

»seattle.craigslist.org/s ··· 527.html

»seattle.craigslist.org/s ··· tAbb=sss
gsm
join:2009-03-10
144-0052

gsm

Member

I am going to get 1 of these to start out with and start to build my lab. Eventually I will get a rack but for 1 server I dont think I need one. I would also like to get some raid experience to. This way at least I am not a paper mcse. »www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Po ··· 6c7b306b

exocet_cm
Writing
Premium Member
join:2003-03-23
Brooklyn, NY

exocet_cm

Premium Member

If you go the VMware route, get the Dell-customized VMware installer for Dell servers: »en.community.dell.com/su ··· 20184182
(I was looking for a direct link but no download pages will open on my phone)