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My new whitebox ESX home lab

17 June, 2009

Last week I was finally ably to buy the whiteboxes I wanted for my homelab. Untill then I had one ESX host at home that hosted my basic environment but because of that I couldn’t try other hypervisors they way I wanted to. So I decided to add two more hosts to my lab.

This is what I bought:

- Asus Barebone V3-P5G45 iG45, SATA2 RAID, HDMI (zilver)

- Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz FSB1333 Box

- Intel PCI-e Adapter Pro1000PT Dual Port LAN 1000Mbit Bulk

- 2x OCZ 2x2GB DDR2 SDRAM PC6400 CL5.0 Platinum (Total 8GB)

- Western Digital 640GB SATA300 16MB, WD6400AACS

Remarks:

* The 640GB harddisk is way to much since I already have a 1TB Iomega StorCenter X2, but the 640GB was only 10 Euro more expensive then a 80GB harddisk.

* The onboard 1GB nic will only work during PXE boot. It will not work once ESX is running, so you need to get extra Nics.

* Be carefull when selecting the barebone. Check the memory configuration. I made the mistake of first selecting the older P5-G41 and it could only hold a max 2 double sides DIMMS which limited the choice in memory and would make 8GB cost me almost 400 Euro. Now with the P5G45 I can use almost any type and payed 80 Euro for 8GB. So, check the ASUS site for compatible memory on the mainboard you choose.

* VMware Fault Tolerant WORKS !!! :-)

Now I have this lab running I have quit some things on my whish list. I want to test performance differences between with and without Jumbo frames, different storage setups, Hyper-V, XenServer 5.5, disaster recovery scenario’s, new backup tooling I’ve seen from Veeam  / esXpress / vizioncore, etc, etc, etc. Still there are only 24hrs in a day.

Well, first job will be to clean up the mess I made by just unpacking the hosts and connecting them. See picture :-)

my home datacenter

by Gabrie van Zanten

  • jasper9

    hey where did you order from? i don't see this model online on too many sites.

  • http://www.GabesVirtualWorld.com Gabrie van Zanten

    I ordered this with 4launch.nl

  • jasper9

    hey where did you order from? i don't see this model online on too many sites.

  • http://www.GabesVirtualWorld.com Gabrie van Zanten

    I ordered this with 4launch.nl

  • http://www.trainsignal.com/ David Davis

    Hi Gabe
    First – great blog post – thanks for sharing this with us!
    Two questions that I am curious about…
    1. If you go into vmDirectPath configuration, do you see any devices or does it say that the hardware doesn't support directpath?
    2. I am assuming that the SATA2 RAID controller works fine when installing ESX? You didn't have to modify any of the PCI config or do anything weird to get the storage recognized, did you?
    Thanks again,
    David Davis

  • http://www.GabesVirtualWorld.com Gabrie van Zanten

    Hi David
    1- On configuration page on the host, hardware section -> advanced it says:
    Host does not support passthrough authentication

    2- Storage was immediately available, no problems there.

    Gabrie

  • http://www.trainsignal.com/ David Davis

    Hi Gabe
    First – great blog post – thanks for sharing this with us!
    Two questions that I am curious about…
    1. If you go into vmDirectPath configuration, do you see any devices or does it say that the hardware doesn't support directpath?
    2. I am assuming that the SATA2 RAID controller works fine when installing ESX? You didn't have to modify any of the PCI config or do anything weird to get the storage recognized, did you?
    Thanks again,
    David Davis

  • http://www.GabesVirtualWorld.com Gabrie van Zanten

    Hi David
    1- On configuration page on the host, hardware section -> advanced it says:
    Host does not support passthrough authentication

    2- Storage was immediately available, no problems there.

    Gabrie

  • Bryan

    Hey slacker, did you ever test Jumbo Frames? I've got a vSphere 2 node cluster in my lab with two linux VPS'es. One via NFS and one via iSCSI. In my case iSCSI is like 3x faster and I'd really like to try Jumbo Frames and teamed NIC's but I don't have a gbit switch yet.

  • Bryan

    Hey slacker, did you ever test Jumbo Frames? I've got a vSphere 2 node cluster in my lab with two linux VPS'es. One via NFS and one via iSCSI. In my case iSCSI is like 3x faster and I'd really like to try Jumbo Frames and teamed NIC's but I don't have a gbit switch yet.

  • http://www.GabesVirtualWorld.com Gabrie van Zanten

    Hi,
    Not tested the Jumbo frames yet. Working on something else now. The GBit switch I got was quite cheap, supports VLANs and JumboFrames. The Linksys Switch SLM2008 8 Ports, 1000Mbit.

    Gabrie

  • Bryan

    I just ordered a 24 port gbit switch that supports Jumbo Frames, trunks, QoS, trunking, etc. So as soon as it comes in I'll be putting the NAS on a gbit jumbo frame network. I'll write back about my performance with jumbo packets and how a mixed MTU environment works.

  • http://www.GabesVirtualWorld.com Gabrie van Zanten

    And please include your test setup and test documentation.

  • http://www.GabesVirtualWorld.com Gabrie van Zanten

    Hi,
    Not tested the Jumbo frames yet. Working on something else now. The GBit switch I got was quite cheap, supports VLANs and JumboFrames. The Linksys Switch SLM2008 8 Ports, 1000Mbit.

    Gabrie

  • Bryan

    I just ordered a 24 port gbit switch that supports Jumbo Frames, trunks, QoS, trunking, etc. So as soon as it comes in I'll be putting the NAS on a gbit jumbo frame network. I'll write back about my performance with jumbo packets and how a mixed MTU environment works.

  • http://www.GabesVirtualWorld.com Gabrie van Zanten

    And please include your test setup and test documentation.

  • LBDWAG

    how did you know what SATA controller would work for VMware? Looking to do the same but don't want to get burned on the SATA controller.

  • LBDWAG

    how did you know what SATA controller would work for VMware? Looking to do the same but don't want to get burned on the SATA controller.

  • http://www.GabesVirtualWorld.com Gabrie van Zanten

    Just like almost all the others, wait for some pioneers to buy and
    test and after they confirmed it works its save to buy :-)

    I had much help from Eric Sloof from http://www.ntpro.nl

    You can also find a lot of info by searching google on “VMware whitebox”

    Gabrie

  • LBDWAG

    Good ole trial and error. At least we know that those chipsets *should* work.

    Thanks for the information.

  • http://www.GabesVirtualWorld.com Gabrie van Zanten

    Just like almost all the others, wait for some pioneers to buy and
    test and after they confirmed it works its save to buy :-)

    I had much help from Eric Sloof from http://www.ntpro.nl

    You can also find a lot of info by searching google on “VMware whitebox”

    Gabrie

  • LBDWAG

    Good ole trial and error. At least we know that those chipsets *should* work.

    Thanks for the information.

  • brian hanly

    you have done well, getting ESX onto a desktop machine.

    i tried to do that last year and failed. i even tried to use the intel pro 1000 network card, but the problem must have been my choice of motherboard.

    what are the secrets to spec'ing a whitebox? do you need a certain chipset on the motherboard? what else do you need?

  • http://www.GabesVirtualWorld.com Gabrie van Zanten

    Secret is mostly the SATA controller and chipset. But to be honest I don't
    know that much about different types of mainboards anymore. I had some tips
    from Eric Sloof (http://www.ntpro.nl) on what mainboard he had chosen. In
    other words, just find out what others are running and buy the same :-) When
    you search for Whitebox ESX on google you will find plenty of links to good
    sites that give you info on what works and what doesn't.

    Gabrie

  • brian hanly

    you have done well, getting ESX onto a desktop machine.

    i tried to do that last year and failed. i even tried to use the intel pro 1000 network card, but the problem must have been my choice of motherboard.

    what are the secrets to spec'ing a whitebox? do you need a certain chipset on the motherboard? what else do you need?

  • http://www.GabesVirtualWorld.com Gabrie van Zanten

    Secret is mostly the SATA controller and chipset. But to be honest I don't
    know that much about different types of mainboards anymore. I had some tips
    from Eric Sloof (http://www.ntpro.nl) on what mainboard he had chosen. In
    other words, just find out what others are running and buy the same :-) When
    you search for Whitebox ESX on google you will find plenty of links to good
    sites that give you info on what works and what doesn't.

    Gabrie

  • brian hanly

    cheers for that.

  • brian hanly

    cheers for that.

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  • RRRinho

    I'd love to build my own ESX host around an HP P400 controller. What would you advice me to use as the motherboard ? I also already have a Q9450 cpu lying around, ready to be plugged into that :)

    I've read that certain ASUS mobos aren't working well with this P400 controller. What's your advice ?

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  • vmwarepatrick

    When you say virtual FT works. Are “Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz” support FT? I thought they have to be FT also.

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