Home lab server for VM's recommendation...

[NelizMastr]

12 minutes ago, Gerr said:

So Windows 10 Pro has a built in Type-1 hypervisor?  Any links to tutorials, either written or video?

You need to enable it first from the windows features menu in the control panel (and enable AMD-V/Intel VT-x in your UEFI), but yes it does. Plenty of Hyper-V coverage if you look around on YouTube or Google  

[Gerr]

Interesting article...

 

https://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/client-hyper-v-vs-virtualbox/

 

 

[leadeater]

5 hours ago, Gerr said:

Interesting article...

 

https://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/client-hyper-v-vs-virtualbox/

Yep, I'd rate that is a rather good comparison of the two.

[RJCuthbertson]

@Gerr This SitePoint page walks you through enabling the feature and your initial configuration: https://www.sitepoint.com/hyper-v-virtual-machine-tutorial/

Microsoft also offers "Hyper-V Server 2016" for free (there's a 2012 and 2008 as well), no strings attached. It's basically Windows Server Core with the Hyper-V feature enabled, an extremely minimal GUI for basic configuration of the box (not much more than creating user accounts, setting passwords, and enabling Remote Desktop connections). Beyond that you use PowerShell from another box to remotely configure it, or you can use the same Hyper-V Virtual Machine Manager tool that you'll use with the local Windows feature-enabled Hyper-V. I'm running my instance off of a USB 3.0 flash drive internal to my rack mount case... saving myself a whopping like 8 GB or something, but leaving me the option of moving all hard drives to another network attached machine without having to figure out how to migrate my Hyper-V Server install.

[DogKnight]

Just having a read through this and thought I’d share the setup I have just gone through. 

I essentially built a new desktop + some assorted parts and re-purposed my old desktop as a server. Now given the PC was my general use desktop, it’s not ideally configured for its purpose but it was a way to kill two birds with one stone ( desktop upgrade plus server setup ). So my current server is spec’d as follows. 

CPU: i7 5820k. 6c/12t

RAM: 32gb DDR4

Storage: 3 x 250gb 960 Pro SSDs and 1TB HDD. 

Graphics: GT 710

Power: 650w gold PSU 

Networking: 1 x onboard intel NIC, 1 x PCIe intel NIC. Both 1000base. 

 

It will have additional storage for VMs on my NAS. Either by NFS or iSCSI. Haven’t decided which to use. 

Have just finished installing ESXi vSphere and a vCenter Server appliance. 

Main issue I think I’ll have is RAM. vCenter uses a lot and so do some of the products I’ll be testing, so probably have to add another 32gb pretty soon. Luckily the CPU and Mobo support up to 128gb so I have room to move. 

 

Just thought id share my experience in case it’s helpful to others.