Require some help spec'ing a box - 64bit
 

I want to find out how cheap I could get a 64bit base unit for loaded with RAM. It is for putting vmware workstation on and running a virtual esx virtual infrastructure for testing/learning purposes. Don't care on the 64bit Windows OS, can be XP, Vista whatever really as long as I can put vmware workstation on it.

I don't need a monitor/keyboard/mouse etc or any flashy video card. It just has to be able to have enough ram and powerfull enough cpu to run lots of vms on which any of my pc's at home just can't do when limited to 4gb or under.

Looked on Dell briefly but nothing jumped out at me. Am I looking at a lot more money for 64bit than your bog standard 32bit boxes?

Any modern dual/quad core processor can run a 64 bit operating system. So any normal old base unit should do (they tend to charge more for the 64 bit os)...

Cheers Iain, as you can see i'm not up to speed on 64bit stuff as never had to use or got the chance to use it so thought had to have a 64bit cpu :rolleyes: I guess that was originally the case but moved on some time ago?

Back to the Dell website then ;)

Might need a bit of digging now but you could pick up a HP ProLiant ML115 quad core Opteron for around £200+VAT. Stuff in 8GB RAM and it's neat little VM test machine.

You can also boot ESXi from a USB memory stick on an internal port - Techhead. Ours has been running a treat like that. Once ESXi is on your network, everything is done via the VMWare Infrastructure Client.

Cheers Chris, that would be ideal if that deal still exists anywhere!?

In fact found it on ebuyer for £249

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/160329

So need to add on 8gb of RAM to that so will go looking to see how much that will cost...

Edit found this http://www.serversplus.com/product.a...-035#prod_spec and also apparently 8gb from crucial will be about £80 :cool:

Chris what differences are there between ESXi and ESX 3.5? I'm wanting to build a 3.5 environment first as that was the course I did last year but work have given me no opportunity what so ever to use what I learnt and have now forgotten most of it. Hence wanting to go over my course material and learn it all again. Then I need to look at testing ESX 4 in the future as we will be upgrading at some point as still on ESX 3 at work.

I've tried to get an area on works infrastructure for testing but no chance at the moment, it's all utilized and no space for me to have a play ground and could be waiting ages until that changes.

I've stuffed 4 sticks of this Kingston part in our ML115 : KTH-XW4400E6/2G

Was £23+VAT per stick from our trade distributor. I don't think the on-board RAID in the ML115 is supported by ESXi, but I've not tried it as we've just stuffed an extra HD in for more space for VMs and nothing important runs on it.

VMWare have this knowledge base article which compares ESX and ESXi. This is another nice comparision.

Just ordered it from here Hewlett Packard 470065-018 - HP ProLiant ML115 G5 Opteron 1352 (2.1 GHz 2Mb) Quad Core SATA DVD Server

£230 with vat and next day delivery (will be Friday now) :D Overclockers 8gb is £65 delivered so quad core server with 8gb ram for less than £300 :cool:

Cheers Chris will have a read. Couldn't resist the OC memory at that price just hope its good, reviews for it were good.

Should all be turning up Friday and get cracking with setting it all up. Hope to work towards getting vcp as i've done the 3.5 course and this setup should help - well that's what i'm telling the wife anyway who isn't best pleased :lol1:

IP35Pro + 8gigs of DDR2 PC6400 is rock solid on 64 bit. ICHR9 with 6xSATA 3Gb/s too.

You lost me there Chef :D

The other issue I found when looking is that most of the cheap dual/quad core desktops are limited to 4gb on the motherboard so no real point of running a 64 bit os on them. I couldn't beat that proliant looking on Dell etc.

That seems an incredible price!

One thing has got me scratching my head though, it says "Internal mass storage
Maximum 3.0 TB (4 x 750 GB) SATA" is there a reason why you couldn't put in 4 x 2tb drives?

I've just checked on the HP Product Bulletin for the ML115 and it's that because HP don't list anything bigger than a 750GB in their options list. Not that you'd pay their money for a bog-standard SATA HD in the first place...

The other thing is the ML115 is pretty quiet once booted. Pretty loud during the POST but once ticking away it's not bad at all.

Cheers Chris, I thought it their might of been a restriction hardware wise, which I was unaware of, your answer actually covers a whole load of other sites i am looking at.........:thumb:

Right never use that company i've put above - Techstore. I phoned them as the order still said on the website as ready for dispatch. They gave some boll0cks about still waiting for my credit card company to authorise it and that they emailed them and haven't had a reply. Order cancelled.

Now need to find it somewhere else :rolleyes:

Just ordered it from Ebuyer for delivery tomorrow for exactly the same price as they have dropped their prices even further since Wednesday :) So if anyone wants one get on ebuyer for a look.