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Hi, first time poster, long time viewer coming for advice. Backstory: I have decided to make myself a fully virtual Windows Server 2022 lab with HA, Clustering, Backups, File Server, and all that, maybe even use it as a NAS of sorts (yea, I know, Linux is probably better suited for servers but I'm one of those people that get to work in full Windows environments at work and having a lab with a similar setup to learn some more or test things out would be great). Issues: My constraint is physical space - I can't dedicate any more space for another PC, but I already have an HTPC in the house. The problem list / requirements: I want to run a bare metal hypervisor (preferrably Hyper-V, but I could tolerate VMware if what I'm looking for is not possible on Hyper-V) On that hypervisor I want to run one VM for the WinSrv lab and one VM for the HTPC Win10/11 I want the HTPC system to be easily accessible through the connected keyboard, mouse, and display in such a way, that if my girlfriend were to go watch Netflix in the living room, she wouldn't even notice that she's doing that on a VM. I want the whole setup to be as minimal in maintenance as possible. I've got enough administrative overhead in my life, and I really don't need the whole HTPC/LAB thing to become a "pool water-cooling project" or "living room audio project" of my house if possible The question: How do I even do that? I was wondering if it was possible to give the HTPC VM a dedicated physical HDMI port and USB ports so the physical computer will just output to the TV by default. Is that possible? Do any of you have experience with running that kind of setup? Is a dedicated GPU required then, or can I get by using an iGPU on a Ryzen 5700G? Is there something obvious I'm not taking into account here, or maybe a better, faster and easier solution? All help would be greatly appreciated

Hi all, new to the forum but love the LTT content for some years now. I work for Thermofisher Scientific as a Thecnical production/testing support specialist for the desktop SEM (scanning electron microscope). I was wondering if a Desktop SEM would be intresting for the LTT Lab if they want to do failure analysis.

Hi all, I'm at a university and our research group might need a silent yet (semi-)portable computer for data acquisition. Does anyone have case recommendations for such a build? It needs to have space for at least 2, but ideally 4 PCIEx4 single slot cards because our scientific cameras are picky and will only work with the specified PCIE cards. The lab environment we're working in is noise sensitive, so we'll need to make reasonable effort at noise reduction, bringing the PC as close to silent as possible. Thankfully the only job his PC has is data acquisition so power and heat are of minimal concern. For portability I'm hoping for something like a handle, or at least something that does not weigh too much so it's easy to move around the lab. Castors won't work for various reasons. Any suggestions welcome. Cheers. EDIT: The PCIE cards come with an option for a short PCIE bracket, presumably for server racks.

Will Lab 2 test speakers or home theatre equipment of any kind? I've been getting into AV equipment recently, and there is so much out there from countless brands, some I know to be reputable, but most I have no idea. I remember seeing a LTT video a while ago about their earbud/ headphone testing dummy heads, and the sound chamber they plan on building, but am wondering how far-reaching that will be. For example, Polk speakers vs Klipsch speakers. Both are brands that I've heard in-person, but 1) there are so many speaker brands that I haven't heard and 2) I'd like to know scientifically how they compare. I really love the effort that goes into LTT videos, and would love a concise, unbiased reviewing of AV equipment. If that's in the works, I may have missed it, so let me know. Thanks!

Heard about the upcoming Magnetic cable management product a few times on WAN show and other ltt videos and I'm so excited about it but meanwhile was wondering if the proximity to the magnet might introduce some noise or weird behaviors especially for audio and video cables. If it gets tested for that in the lab, later on it would be great if that's mentioned somewhere.

Before I even start... Yes, I realize I could buy low end/used PCs. Yes, I realize this project isn't necessary. Yes, I want to proceed anyway, so long as its at least slightly practical. Ok, so I'm working on setting up a makerspace. Its a slow process and I'm trying to piece it together as we go so that it grows to fit our community. The first things we are wanting to add are 3D printers and workstations to be able to create models and run the slicer. Today we just need Fusion 360 and Cura(and maybe a couple related programs), but down the road we will likely add some graphics software(Photoshop, Illustrator, etc), developer software(Visual Studio, Arduino IDE, Sketch, etc). So our workstations won't necessarily be doing a lot of heavy lifting, but I'd like to offer a decent experience for the people that come in to work on projects. Here's what I'm looking at: 1x Host(PC/Server) Good specs, not over the top Primary OS can be Windows or Linux. I'm more familiar with windows but am willing to work with linux if its better for the project. 10x Clients Bare bones machines remoting into the PC/Server OR Remote Peripherals connected back to the PC/Server Based on my current understanding, I would prefer that the Host be running virtual machines that can be accessed via remote connection. My reasoning is that I could always add more VMs and allow members to remote into the host using their own device(laptop, phone, tablet). This way they can use whatever software is available without having to take a seat from someone that doesn't have their own device. Also, supposedly creating VMs that use dynamic resources is much easier than it used to be. If I understand correctly, I could create 100 VMs but the hardware resources are only split between the VMs that are currently being used. Let me know what you think. I could only find one similar thread, but it was from 2015 and I'm pretty sure there have been some technological advancements since then.

So where do i start? Go by the nick Hawolex i`m a male born 1983. Live in Norway. Have 2 kids and a fiance. Work as a truck driver. So why am i here? cos i crave to be a nerd "or geek if you want" i guess. I`m intrested in pc games and network. Have no school or papers on IT/Network. All from friends and reading up when i need. My Daily Driver is: PORTABLE: Microsoft Surface Pro 4 12,3" Core i5-6300U,8GB RAM,256GB Windows 10 Pro Gaming/Home: Motherbord: MSI X99S GAMING 7, 2011-v3 CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K LGA2011-3 GPU: 2x MSI GeForce GTX 980 Gaming 4GB PSU: Corsair RM750, 750W RAM: HyperX Fury 2133MHz 16GB HDD: 2x Samsung 850PRO 256GB in raid 0 "for OS" HDD: 4x Samsung EVO 500GB in storage space Monitor: 3x 24» EIZO eizo foris fg2421 Case: Fractal Design Define S Black Headset, mouse and keyboard are all QPAD Mouse - 8K laser Keyboard - MK-80 Headset - QH-85 But the most important are my LAB!! Right? So it all starts with my Router/Firewall. It`s and old HP Proliant G5 Intel Xeon E5440 4Core 8GB Ramm ECC Dual NIC. 4x 64GB in Raid 0+1 Running: pfSense 2.3.3-RELEASE (amd64) built on Thu Feb 16 06:59:53 CST 2017 FreeBSD 10.3-RELEASE-p16 Before i used an all original PfSence box from sheep fence, but it was to slow for my liking. This Connect to my little "SWITCH" zyxel-gs1900-24e 10/100/1000 Mbps GbE ports Easy browser-based switch management Quick and easy set up wizard Advanced network error prevention features Fanless design Never had any kind of issue with this one. 1. Server on the network It`s my DC "Domain Controller" It`s an older DELL T110 Xeon x3430 8GB ram ECC Running Windows Server 2012 R2 This is my main DC and an iSCSI targer server. "i have an second DC in an VM" 2 and 3. Server on the network These are 100% identical. New DELL T20 Xeon E3-1225 v3 3.19GHz 4core no HT 20GB DELL ram ECC 120GB kingston SSD for OS. Running Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter. These two server work as NODE 1 and 2 on my cluster. Get VM storage from DC server. 4. server on the network This is a DELL T110 i bout new. Xeon E3-1270 v2 3.5GHz 4Core with HT "8 cores total" 32GB DELL Ram ECC 240GB kingston SSD for OS. Running Windows Server 2012 R2 This work as a Node in my cluster aswell. But gets the little more heavy VM`s. It also have 4 WD Red 4TB in storage space as a regular server share with redundancy "7,26GB usable storage" 5. server on the network This is my OLD pc. AMD FX-8350 8 core 4.01 GHz 16GB Ram 480BG kingston SSD for os Running Windows Server R2 Standard This is a iSCSI targer server. Shares 14.5 TB of NO redundancy storage for my VM`s 6. Server on the network This is an Small DELL T20 Intel Pentium 4 GB Dell Ram NO ECC Running Windows Home server 500GB dell disk for OS 2x 2 TB Dell disk in mirroring. This is for pictures and important private stuff. "not a part of my lab or Domain" My DC and Server1 "one of the T20 Nodes are on a Eaton 5sc 750i UPS. VM`s i run are mainly Windows Server 2012R2 but some Linux are incomming. "i try to learn" WS=Windows server WS - Teamspeak WS - backup DC OpenVPN vm WS - setting up for in house Windows update WS - Game server for Minecraft, ark and terraria 3 different linux vm`s. Fedora, Mint and Elementaryo Win 8 VM Win 10 VM WS - Plex server "media sharing" and several vm`s comes and goes. I have some pre built VHDX i jusk can copy and deploy. Maybe a deployment server are my next step??? Well this was a little summery of me and my hardware. Some screen shots:

Hey guys, I wanted to get the opinions of how feasible it is to do a Home Server/NAS build? Long term goal is an on-demand (via WOL) NAS and Email server, short-term is an on-demand home-lab where I can spin up VMs remotely to use for various things, primarily networking (think GNS3). Would a Ryzen 1700/1700X be good with the high core count? I would be maxing out the memory at 32GB immediately--which is a slight bummer because in the long term I would prefer 64 GB. Since the memory cap is holding me back, going with something server grade like the upcoming Naples seems promising for a budget solution, but how much of a price jump would I be expecting? I was this to be a semi-long term server so I am willing to spend my budget anywhere between 1800 and 2500. Thoughts, suggestions?

Hello, I'm creating a lab environment and am setting up a demilitarized zone in my room. I connected the house router to my room router. The router I am using in my room was just lying around in my parents' basement. I connected the ethernet cable coming out of the house router to the WAN port on the room router. Not getting an internet connection. Since I am currently lazy at the moment, I don't won't to fetch a USB cable from the office and plug in to the router with my laptop. Any suggestions? I thought it would be more plug and play due to assumed default DHCP setttings. I'm pretty sure I am using known good cables (plugging 3 foot ethernet cables from room router into home desktop and Playstation 4). I suppose the router itself could be bad too. Thank you for any suggestions.

Hi everyone, I'm setting up a lab environment at home to mess around with networking and other things. I think it would also be nice to get a robust laptop that I can do Virtual Machines to mess around with other OS's. Any recommendations? I basically want to implement as much of a lab environment as possible with this laptop. Thanks.

I was looking on ebay for some new server hardware for my home. I came across Engineering Samples of Skylake Xeon Gold Scalable 6138 and 6148s anywhere from $150-300. Are these CPUs okay for home or lab use? Is there anything wrong with them? Thanks

Hello, So now i setup 2 VMs, one is Pfsense that is set to be router and second is ubuntu machine. Now i want to add another Pfsense Machine to be firewall only and pass traffic of VMs trough it . I struggle with settings of that second Pfsense machine. Should it still have 2 nic? If so how should it be set in virtualbox? Like one is the Lan network that i made from the first Pfsense machine and second is another Lan network? Or both should be assigned to same network? After that, how can i access that fresh pfsense machine? Will it have an ip address so that test unbuntu vm can use it for configuration? Cheers,

Hi, I'm New here, so what I would like to know is what is the best ways to create a lab\test network where I can test deployment from a server , and use WDS to img bulk pc's. The Why I live in a share house with I travel a lot for work, and in the past, they have reset the modem after a power outage and the server did not come back on (it was running DHCP). before I start I would like to hear what other people have done, before i spend time looking at solutions that wont work

hello everyone, iam currently studying for MCSA and want to get "professional" at it in a practical way. so what do you guys suggest for a home lab that i can train situations as close as real problems that is industrial standard ? please be as detailed as possible thank you all

hello everyone, iam currently studying CCNA and want to get "professional" at it in a practical way. so what do you guys suggest for a home lab that i can train situations as close as real problems that is industrial standard ? please be as detailed as possible thank you all

Well i have no background in Computing, work fulltime as a truck driver. Gone Sunday/monday to friday. So heres my Hobby. _Gameservers_ 1. Microsoft Windows 10 Pro | 16322MB RAM 1x Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770K CPU @ 3.50GHz(4C/8T) 2. Microsoft Windows 10 Pro | 16279MB RAM 1x Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5820K CPU @ 3.30GHz(6C/12T) These are running AMP by CubeCoders and are hosting a Bungecord network of MC servers, maily for my son and some of my friends kids Planning og some others aswell "timecrunch" _Workstation_ AMD Ryzen 7 3700x 8-Core Processor. ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING Motherboard. 32GB Ram 2x 1tb intel nvme in raid 0 for 2TB bootdrive. AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT _PORTABLE_ Microsoft Surface Pro 4 12,3" Core i5-6300U,8GB RAM,256GB Windows 10 Pro _Nettwork_ Ubiqiti usg Ubiqiti CluidKey gen2 Ubiqiti 2x 8port small switches 4poe Ubiqiti 24port switch Zyxcell 24port on 2 different locations 1x china brand PoE switch "8port" for 2 poe cameras 6x Ubiquiti 1080p PoE G3 "4 in Production" _LAB_ 1. server on the network This is a DELL T110 i bout new. Xeon E3-1270 v2 3.5GHz 4Core with HT "8 cores total" 32GB DELL Ram ECC 240GB kingston SSD for OS 2 and 3. Server on the network These are 100% identical. New DELL T20 Xeon E3-1225 v3 3.19GHz 4core no HT 20GB DELL ram ECC 120GB kingston SSD for OS. These all run Xcp-Ng server 1 with local mirrored storage for uptime server 2 and 3 have shared storage for testing and higher speed but not data sequre atm 4. Server on the network This is an Small DELL T20 Intel Pentium 4 GB Dell Ram NO ECC Running Windows server 2019 500GB dell disk for OS 2x 4 TB Dell disk in mirroring. This is for pictures and important private stuff. "not a part of my lab or Domain" 5. Server on the network It`s my DC "Domain Controller" It`s an older DELL T110 Xeon x3430 8GB ram ECC Running Windows Server 2019 standard This is my main DC and an iSCSI targer server. Close to 40 TB raw storage in my lab vm`s i run constand OpenVPN windows10 Teamspeak server statping on top of Win 10 XenOrcestra on top of CentOs7 Some od hardware not beeing used for later projects. Pictures are: The "serverRoom" before Ubiqiti install Workstation

So this was really cool, its a tour of Nvidia's lab where they test new chips to make sure they pass quality control, and they test defective chips to find out where it failed and which machine in the fab needs to be looked at and possibly repaired. Some testing includes: A lot of expensive microscopes and testing machines, to find out why one transistor failed so that it doesn't the next time. Source is the video itself PS- something interesting mentioned by the guy doing the tour is that they are currently looking at 10nm, so that may be hinting that nvidia has begun testing of 10nm chips and getting ready to mass produce in a few years time It could also be that he is just talking about the order of 10nm, which would include 16nm, but considering how many years of R&D and testing it takes to perfect a chip, it isn't very unlikely that they would have test samples of 10nm chips.

Hey guys, I'm trying to create labs so that my fellow students and I can learn using hands on methods. Here's the setup. The school has several Cisco switches/firewalls/routers, and 3 client PCs that we can play around with. I plan to put Server 2012 on one of the PCs, and use the others as clients. EXAMPLE: Here's the sort of thing I'm going for. "Using what you have learned so far, configure this Server 2012 machine to dynamically assign IP addresses to the 2 client machines." Simple right? Then the student would do everything from scratch. Hook the Server to the switch, and the client to the switch. (For the easy labs, the switch will be already configured, The harder labs will require it to be configured.) Install the DHCP role, create a scope, verify the client and server can connect, ipconfig /release /renew, and ipconfig to very the client got an address. I'm looking for things like that. Any ideas are appreciated!

I'm trying to build a Cisco lab to practice on for CCNA/CCNP and I was wondering what else I should buy. So far I have one 2621XM router and two 2950T switches. Thanks in advance.

Anyone Know?

Budget: US$1500 (estimate) Location: Japan, all items will be bought from amazon.co.jp Aim/Purpose: Virtualization Lab (XenServer and/or ESXI as Hypervisor/OS on HDD), Gaming, Overclocking just for fun Monitors: 1 display @1920x1080 Misc constraints: 1 SDD for windows HDD not required, have a spare lying around cd/dvd/bd drive not required monitor not required peripherals not required must be small (mini-itx), should fit on check-in luggage must be quiet GPU will be bought separately on different time Air Cooled small psu size, reference size is corsair cx series will not use node 304 fan controller, all PWM The Build: CPU: Intel Haswell i5-4670K Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO MOBO: Gigabyte Z87N-WIFI Mini-ITX RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8) DDR3-1600 PSU: Corsair CX600M 80+ Bronze Semi Modular SSD: Samsung 840 120GB Case: Fractal Design Node 304 Case Fans: 2x Gelid Silent 80mm PWM for intake, 1x Gelid Silent 140mm PWM for exhaust and some PWM splitter cables. GPU: Asus DirectCU GTX770 *not priority, will wait on AMD 9XXXX. http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1rKq3 Some of other brands/products are not available in this country so I am kinda stuck on these brands I chose. Question 1: Is it okay to use pwm splitter to an exhaust and a cpu fan? Question 2: Should I dedicate a fan header to cpu fan? Question 3: What really is the difference between system fan header and cpu fan header? Do they detect same temps? or System for case temp and cpu on cpu temps only Question 4: If you are doing this build for same purpose, what would you name it? I am very open on critics, suggestions and questions too. I know that colors will not pair good. Okay, what would I play? For now SimCity(don't laugh), probably BF4 and good games on the future. Priority is Virtual lab.