New ESXi build

[paddy-stone]

Hey guys,

 

Just wanted some input on something. So I have an idea about doing a new build for ESXi/homelab type stuff. I know I'll need intel NIC for it to work. Here is the build (most stuff already owned).

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 1700 3 GHz 8-Core Processor	Purchased For £0.00
CPU Cooler	Cooler Master MasterLiquid Lite 240 66.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler	Purchased For £0.00
Motherboard	ASRock X370M Pro4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	£60.72 @ SmartTeck.co.uk
Memory	Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	Purchased For £0.00
Storage	Samsung 970 Evo 250 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	Purchased For £0.00
Storage	Toshiba P300 3 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	£65.09 @ CCL Computers
Video Card	Zotac GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6 GB AMP! Edition Video Card	Purchased For £0.00
Case	Corsair Air 540 ATX Mid Tower Case	Purchased For £0.00
Power Supply	EVGA SuperNOVA G2 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	Purchased For £0.00
Custom	PRO/1000 Ptquadport Bulk	Purchased For £0.00
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£125.81
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-08-17 13:54 BST+0100

 

OK, so what I would like to know as I can't experiment myself right now due to my cooler for the build being in use ATM and it'd be a hassle to keep moving it, is can ESXi work with external HDDs very well? USB 3.0 to be exact... I won't be hitting it hard with reads/writes at all, it's purely for homelab experimentation ATM. The build I was gonna use (an old i7 6700k), has had a few issues keeping me from going ahead, namely cooler issues again, as I seem to have mislaid my noctua NH-D15s mounting hardware for intel stuff typically

And while I could swap out a cooler here or there to mount the NH-D15 on an AMD system, the orientation doesn't sit well with me.

 

Anyway, so if anyone could give me an answer to the above question(and below) question, I'd be most grateful, thanks

 

TLDR:  can ESXi work well with USB 3.0 external HDDs?

[vano411]

ESXi 6.0+ does support USB 3.0 external hard drives as passthrough but I believe the size limitation is 2TB. You'll have to add a USB controller, then the USB device to the VM in the console/GUI.

[paddy-stone]

14 hours ago, vano411 said:

ESXi 6.0+ does support USB 3.0 external hard drives as passthrough but I believe the size limitation is 2TB. You'll have to add a USB controller, then the USB device to the VM in the console/GUI.

Ahh thanks for the info, it's a no go for me then at only 2TB, I was either gonna use the 6TB one I already have or get an 8TB. 2TB is not cost efficient unfortunately, can get a 3 or 4TB internal for almost the same money.

[DogKnight]

If I remember correctly, Ryzen CPU's are not supported. May have changed since I last looked into it. 

Hopefully someone else can clarify. 

[paddy-stone]

2 minutes ago, DogKnight said:

If I remember correctly, Ryzen CPU's are not supported. May have changed since I last looked into it. 

Hopefully someone else can clarify. 

Ryzen CPUs work fine now, I've had an ESXi build before, just needed the info about the external drives.

[brandishwar]

What experimentation do you have planned with the external drive? You should also research Proxmox to see if it'll provide what you're looking for unless you have a specific reason to use ESXi.

[paddy-stone]

56 minutes ago, brandishwar said:

What experimentation do you have planned with the external drive? You should also research Proxmox to see if it'll provide what you're looking for unless you have a specific reason to use ESXi.

Well it's not really "experimentation" as such... just wanted to have a fileserver/media player/NAS and such on a VM, and external drives often work out cheaper, I got a 6TB one for only £85 approx, only a month or so ago. It's no worries anyway, I'll have a play around with other hypervisors too.

I want to see how much I can push the machine to do also. Still deciding whether to use my old i7 6700K build for this with just an added Hdd or 2, or similar for my Ryzen 1700 if/when I upgrade my CPU soon. I may do some re-working of systems even to have the 1700 build with some added extras be my file server etc and then re-use my Athlon 200GE (my current main server) for just media player usage instead.

 

TLDR: basically want to play around with my hardware and see what works best for me... or just keep one build for a homelab/testing machine.

[vano411]

You can buy external HDD's, take the drive out of the enclosure and connect it through the SATA interface.

 

I don't recommend it as they're not designed to be run in a 24x7 server-type environment. Buddy of mine loaded up his Synology with the drives from a bunch of WD Passorts he found on sale and they all died within two years.

[paddy-stone]

2 hours ago, vano411 said:

You can buy external HDD's, take the drive out of the enclosure and connect it through the SATA interface.

 

I don't recommend it as they're not designed to be run in a 24x7 server-type environment. Buddy of mine loaded up his Synology with the drives from a bunch of WD Passorts he found on sale and they all died within two years.

Yeah, I'd do that and shuck them if it was possible, unfortunately I planned on re-using an external I already have and don't want to shuck that as I need it as is - it's one of my last resort backups ATM... so was just gonna use it for testing then re-load the data back on to it when I have the cash for some more NAS drives (if I decide to go that way).

I might buy a couple extra though and shuck those if I have the spare cash. ATM I have plans for the money though, what with upgrading to Zen 2, updating main server maybe, building ESXi/homelab... I'll have to see what I have left spare cash wise. I already have a fair amount of spare parts I can use, including SSDs for the VMs.

 

Sorry for the ramble... not sure exactly what I'll use the server for yet, so just weighing my options and making sure I have the money for the needed hardware for all the upgrades + extra drives for ESXi build etc.