Server Hardware recomendation

[NachoILF]

Hi All,

 

I want to build a personal server but I dont know which type of mother, CPU and amount of RAM would be enough.

 

I want to clear out that I live in Argentina and here we only have acces to common and gaming hardware. (so no server grade hardware available)

 

The idea is to run a ESXi 6.7 as base OS and create 5 VM. 

1. FreeNAS 11
2. Windows 10
3. Linux (Ubuntu probably)
4. Testing (diferent OS testing)
5. Testing (diferent OS testing)

RAM: I think 32 GB would be enough (I know I can use less RAM if I delete 2 VM, but I want the CPU and Mother to be future prepeared.)

CPU: I thought a Core i3 or i5 (the idea is to make a cheap server, if possible).

Mother: No f**king clue.

 

Right now I am running a FreeNAS 9.10 in a HP Precision M4600, it is a notebook (HERE)

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2540M CPU @ 2.60GHz

RAM: 8GB

And runs a SMB file system, a PLEX media server and Trasnmission.

 

 

[Ashleyyyy]

to be clear, when you say no server grade hardware is available does that also mean Xeon's and motherboards for those on the second hand market?

[Electronics Wizardy]

do you need esxi? it can be very picky with network cards and hardware and hypervisors like proxmox or hyper-v would be much happerier to runn on desktop hardware.

 

Also with proxmox you get zfs on the host so then you don' need a freenas vm.

 

 

[NachoILF]

1 hour ago, firelighter487 said:

to be clear, when you say no server grade hardware is available does that also mean Xeon's and motherboards for those on the second hand market?

Yes

 

55 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

do you need esxi? it can be very picky with network cards and hardware and hypervisors like proxmox or hyper-v would be much happerier to runn on desktop hardware.

 

Also with proxmox you get zfs on the host so then you don' need a freenas vm.

 

 

I'm going to look in to it, thanks!

[beyonddc]

11 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

do you need esxi? it can be very picky with network cards and hardware and hypervisors like proxmox or hyper-v would be much happerier to runn on desktop hardware.

 

Also with proxmox you get zfs on the host so then you don' need a freenas vm.

 

 

I wouldn't agree more on this.  ESXI 6.5 and 6.7 doesn't have the network card driver for my onboard realtek NIC.  You want to stay with Intel or Broadcom NIC