Combine 2 Gamers 1 CPU and standard ESXi lab server

[Robert.pvf]

I recently purchased this:

Dell PowerEdge R510 II

2x 2.66GHz 6-Core X5650

32GB RAM

H700 512MB

2x 750w ps

8x 3.5” hot swap bays

2x internal 2.5” bays

8x 2TB 3.5” drives

Will probably get 2x SSD for internal OS RAID 1

 

I am going to use this for a home lab ESXi server with VM’s for file sharing, Plex, Windows Server functions and anything else I can think of. However, I also want to virtualize a physical (or two) Windows desktop and move it to this server. This desktop then has to be able to be accessed like a normal physical desktop for those less technically inclined. Also, I will be doing something similar to what Linus did with his home rig as this desktop has to be accessed from wherever I wish on the network. The reason for this is to save power, take advantage of the RAID array for data integrity and have one less machine for me to maintain.

 

I will handle all network bandwidth requirements but my main concern is software and what other physical hardware I’ll need to pull this off. Doesn’t have to be free but I want something reliable and fairly cost effective (was thinking $100-250 extra expense).

 

My questions are thus:

I will be using ESXi for the home lab server stuff so can I install unRAID (or similar) within this and have it work with a graphics card (something basic and cheap as I don’t need much for this desktop)? Or do I need to install unRAID (or similar) as the main OS and then put my desktop and ESXi into this?

 

Or would ESXi do all that I want natively? I’ve heard (and know) you can do something hardware assigning to ESXi VM’s but not sure if to the extent of what was done in 2 Gamers 1 CPU.

 

Willing to try a bunch of stuff if people have suggestions (and post results back) but not sure if what I want is even possible currently. 

 

[wpirobotbuilder]

You can pass through devices to ESXi, but not keyboards and mice. You'd have to pass through a USB controller to the VM. However, passing through chipset USB is difficult to do, so the general recommendation is to get PCIe USB cards and pass them through directly to your VMs.

 

Nvidia cards generally don't support PCIe passthrough on ESXi, AMD cards tend to work (except dual-GPU). Puget Systems built a setup like you're describing, you can see instructions https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Multi-headed-VMWare-Gaming-Setup-564/here

 

Here's a blog that describes a lot about setting up this kind of stuff - http://thehomeserverblog.com/esxi/esxi-5-0-amd-whitebox-server-for-500-with-passthrough-iommu-build-2/

[Mikensan]

I can't remember if that system will support direct I/O, I think it most likely does. VT-D is what to look for.

 

I can tell you from experience the part that sucks the most is when you have to reboot the ESXI server, then everything on there is going down with it. Without a second ESXI server to move / vmotion servers to/from then putting anything important / daily use on there sucks. I had my firewall virtualized and that was my biggest gripe.

 

unRaid and ESXi are both bare metal / Type-1 hypervisors, and do no behave well when nested.

 

ESXi from what I understand doesn't make USB device sharing from the host very easy. However if you use a thin client you get around that issues, and you could use something like ThinOS + Horizon to achieve that... but Horizon is pretty expensive.

 

For your needs you may be better off with unRaid. And you will absolutely need SSDs, as the way unRaid handles disks sucks ass for speed and IOPS.

[Robert.pvf]

Awesome thanks guys. Will probably attempt ESXi first and see how it goes. Server gets in next week so will update back when I get somewhere. Open for more ideas in the mean time. 

[Sevilla]

As someone who has recently built an ESXI 6 server, I can tell you that for better compatibility with graphics cards, you may wanna stick to UnRAID, as ESXI has (as mentioned above) mostly compatibility with AMD cards, and even then the select cards that do work are very few. Unless you don't expect high end gaming on it, I don't recommend ESXI as your primary hypervisor.

[Robert.pvf]

1 hour ago, Sevilla said:

As someone who has recently built an ESXI 6 server, I can tell you that for better compatibility with graphics cards, you may wanna stick to UnRAID, as ESXI has (as mentioned above) mostly compatibility with AMD cards, and even then the select cards that do work are very few. Unless you don't expect high end gaming on it, I don't recommend ESXI as your primary hypervisor.

I don't expect gaming at all. This desktop is used for finance software, Microsoft Office use and other basic file stuff. I would totally use unRAID if I was building a gaming build. Plus I don't think a large graphics card would even fit in the R510. Thanks for the warning and notes from experience.