CPU as a multi-task virtual servers

[Sata 3 Trip]

Hello mates,

I'm looking for a cheap server platform, to accomplish the following purposes:

- a server where I can virtualize 2 or 3 Vm at same time:

    - NAS server (with Plex Media Server - 4k res)

    - Crypto wallet VM (will be online rarely)

    - Seedbox VM

    - Run sometimes a game server on the host machine - The host can be Windows Server or Linux (game server will demands at least 4 cores 2Ghz, and 4GB of free RAM)

 

I'm looking for a CPU that can do this all above, without emptying my wallet (power consumption and hardware value).

So I've found the E5 2678 v3 (Used). It is the best option for these purposes?

What you guys recommend?

 

Thanks in advance. I will appreciate any help!

 

[LIGISTX]

9 minutes ago, Sata 3 Trip said:

Hello mates,

I'm looking for a cheap server platform, to accomplish the following purposes:

- a server where I can virtualize 2 or 3 Vm at same time:

    - NAS server (with Plex Media Server - 4k res)

    - Crypto wallet VM (will be online rarely)

    - Seedbox VM

    - Run sometimes a game server on the host machine - The host can be Windows Server or Linux (game server will demands at least 4 cores 2Ghz, and 4GB of free RAM)

 

I'm looking for a CPU that can do this all above, without emptying my wallet (power consumption and hardware value).

So I've found the E5 2678 v3 (Used). It is the best option for these purposes?

What you guys recommend?

 

Thanks in advance. I will appreciate any help!

 

Honestly… my home lab runs on an i3 6100, ESXi hypervisor hosting feeenas, windows LTSC, home assistant, 3 Ubuntu VM’s. One Ubuntu has Plex and some automations running, another has docker containers with pihole, multiple deluge clients, and the i3 does all of this without missing a beat. 
 

It’s quite impressive actually. Any quad core with HT should be “plenty” for your needs as I’m doing almost all of it minus game server on a dual core with HT.

 

Also, depending on the hypervisor you pick and if it’ll support it, may not be a bad idea to see if you can snag a used Ryzen CPU… although Intel does typically play nicer with such things as virtualization historically. If you were to go Ryzen, I wouldn’t go any older then 3000 series. 

[8tg]

Power consumption and hardware value, unless you really need a ton of cores, get current gen entry level.

an i3 10100F on B460 will handle everything you’re asking there, with about the same overall cost, but significantly lower power consumption and surprisingly similar real world performance. Outside of extremely intensive multi core workloads where having 24 threads is valuable.

 

 

[Velcade]

15 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

Honestly… my home lab runs on an i3 6100, ESXi hypervisor hosting feeenas, windows LTSC, home assistant, 3 Ubuntu VM’s. One Ubuntu has Plex and some automations running, another has docker containers with pihole, multiple deluge clients, and the i3 does all of this without missing a beat. 

Are you able to stream 4k content on Plex and transcode?

[Sata 3 Trip]

18 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

Honestly… my home lab runs on an i3 6100, ESXi hypervisor hosting feeenas, windows LTSC, home assistant, 3 Ubuntu VM’s. One Ubuntu has Plex and some automations running, another has docker containers with pihole, multiple deluge clients, and the i3 does all of this without missing a beat. 
 

It’s quite impressive actually. Any quad core with HT should be “plenty” for your needs as I’m doing almost all of it minus game server on a dual core with HT.

 

Also, depending on the hypervisor you pick and if it’ll support it, may not be a bad idea to see if you can snag a used Ryzen CPU… although Intel does typically play nicer with such things as virtualization historically. If you were to go Ryzen, I wouldn’t go any older then 3000 series. 

That's really impressive, I stopped following the hardware market a while ago. Now I realised that I3 are pretty decent!

11 minutes ago, 8tg said:

Power consumption and hardware value, unless you really need a ton of cores, get current gen entry level.

an i3 10100F on B460 will handle everything you’re asking there, with about the same overall cost, but significantly lower power consumption and surprisingly similar real world performance. Outside of extremely intensive multi core workloads where having 24 threads is valuable.

 

 

Seems nice but, with virtualization I will need some extra cores to handle multiples VM running without struggling. Unless of course 4 cores (of this i3) can handle the main operating system + 2/3 VMs running.

[LIGISTX]

15 hours ago, Velcade said:

Are you able to stream 4k content on Plex and transcode?

I can't transcode 4k, no, but the first 3 rules of 4k content is very similar to the first 3 rules of RAID, except instead of "RAID is not a backup", its "have 4k and 1080p source for content you intend to transcode" I can transcode multiple 1080p to 720p streams at once, depending on the source bit rate. I can do a single bluray to 720, or 4+ already compressed 1080p to 720p's, and this is on my ubuntu server VM which I only give 2 threads of my i3 to... But I almost always direct play anyways, 4k DV/Atmos direct play to my nvidia shield, thankfully direct play uses virtually no hardware resources.

 

15 hours ago, Sata 3 Trip said:

That's really impressive, I stopped following the hardware market a while ago. Now I realised that I3 are pretty decent!

Seems nice but, with virtualization I will need some extra cores to handle multiples VM running without struggling. Unless of course 4 cores (of this i3) can handle the main operating system + 2/3 VMs running.

And this is an older i3 that is only a dual core.... The new ones are 1) faster, 2) have a lot more cores. The older i3's though, like mine, support ECC, which I have in my homelab. I don't think the new ones do? Which is sort of a downer. This is why I am waiting for AM5, will upgrade to some low tier AMD chip (that will still likely have 16+ threads which is 4x what I have now not even accounting for IPC improvements) and DDR5 RAM which is ECC by default

[Sata 3 Trip]

On 10/12/2021 at 2:59 AM, LIGISTX said:

I can't transcode 4k, no, but the first 3 rules of 4k content is very similar to the first 3 rules of RAID, except instead of "RAID is not a backup", its "have 4k and 1080p source for content you intend to transcode" I can transcode multiple 1080p to 720p streams at once, depending on the source bit rate. I can do a single bluray to 720, or 4+ already compressed 1080p to 720p's, and this is on my ubuntu server VM which I only give 2 threads of my i3 to... But I almost always direct play anyways, 4k DV/Atmos direct play to my nvidia shield, thankfully direct play uses virtually no hardware resources.

 

And this is an older i3 that is only a dual core.... The new ones are 1) faster, 2) have a lot more cores. The older i3's though, like mine, support ECC, which I have in my homelab. I don't think the new ones do? Which is sort of a downer. This is why I am waiting for AM5, will upgrade to some low tier AMD chip (that will still likely have 16+ threads which is 4x what I have now not even accounting for IPC improvements) and DDR5 RAM which is ECC by default

Ok, I still have one doubt tho. The ESXi works fine in your i3? As far as I know CPUs that aren't designed for server, show some problems with bare metal virtualization.

[LIGISTX]

2 hours ago, Sata 3 Trip said:

Ok, I still have one doubt tho. The ESXi works fine in your i3? As far as I know CPUs that aren't designed for server, show some problems with bare metal virtualization.

No CPU is “designed for servers”. CPU’s are CPU’s for the most part. As long as it supports virtualization, such as with Intel, vt-d, it’ll work just fine.

 

I run ESXi on my setup, I pass through my HBA to Freenas so it has bare metal access to the drives (which ZFS wants), and all VM’s are happy. It’s been running for 3+ years, and my specific i3 supports ECC ram which I am using as well. 

[LIGISTX]

Also you will likely not want to use windows as the host…. Down flavor of linux with virtualization as a core feature. If you need a windows machine, run it as a VM under your hypervisor.