Anyone run virtual machines for at home for family members, guests, etc.?

[Arkitech]

Wondering if anyone has experience building VMs for home use. Seems like a good way to keep the rest of the home network insulated from viruses. Also if the VM gets trashed, it's no big deal. Just reload a snapshot and it's a brand new computer again.


Anyone here using something like this at home? How do you have it setup? What kind of hardware/software are you running?

 

[saratoga172]

Run VM's at home all the time but they are for/in a test lab. In other words I have a primary system I do things on and when I need to test stuff or software I put it into a VM I run on that machine.

As for day to day use you would probably want to run it off an SSD and spec it with 2 cores and 2-4gb of memory depending on your use case. You could either enable it for RDP access or use something like VMWare Workstation, VirtualBox or Hyper-V console (I use Hyper-V that comes with Windows 8/Server 2012) and go that route.

I would also install AV software etc. Would have to think about how to keep it off the network to protect the host machine. Maybe have a vSwitch setup or keeping all the sharing features turned off? Haven't honestly looked into it much but I'm sure someone here has done it.

Also don't forget if it's not for yourself you'll have to teach people how to use it and get into it. I see opportunity though.

 

[smakme7757]

My entire home network is built upon VMs. It's a great idea if you can find a purpose for it.

To name a few:
Media Center
Firewall/IPS
File Server

I'm currently running a dedicated machine with Hyper-V with Windows Server 2012 R2.

My setup to give you an idea of a more dedicated solution:

Hardware:
2.4Ghz CPU
32GB RAM
Recent motherboard
4x Network Card

Storage:
1x 160GB SSD = Host OS
6x 2TB RAID 10 = Storage array
2x 1TB RAID 1 = Primary VM's
1x 500GB SSD = Home Lab

That's my personal dedicated solution, bit of a frankenstein, but It works really well.

A more user friendly and introductory solution could be Virtual Box or Vmware Workstation on a machine with some ram and a few disks to get a few machines up and running.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

That's pretty nice. What are the bottlenecks if any? and how many VMs do you have, and how much RAM do you allocate to each? Are you using dynamic memory?

My entire home network is built upon VMs. It's a great idea if you can find a purpose for it.

To name a few:
Media Center
Firewall/IPS
File Server

I'm currently running a dedicated machine with Hyper-V with Windows Server 2012 R2.

My setup to give you an idea of a more dedicated solution:

Hardware:
2.4Ghz CPU
32GB RAM
Recent motherboard
4x Network Card

Storage:
1x 160GB SSD = Host OS
6x 2TB RAID 10 = Storage array
2x 1TB RAID 1 = Primary VM's
1x 500GB SSD = Home Lab

That's my personal dedicated solution, bit of a frankenstein, but It works really well.

A more user friendly and introductory solution could be Virtual Box or Vmware Workstation on a machine with some ram and a few disks to get a few machines up and running.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I also run a large server at home running Windows 2012 R2 with Hyper V. Specs:

Supermicro X9DR3
Dual Xeon E5-2620
128 GB of RAM
LSI MegaRAID 9261-8
Two 120 GB Samsung 830 (mirrored for OS)
Eight WD 3 TB Red drives (RAID6)
6 gigabit NIC ports
Synology DS413j NAS dedicated to server backups (Four 4 TB drives)

I currently have 27 VMs built on the server, with 18 running 24/7 and the rest just being test boxes or systems under development. Some examples of VMs running:

AD domain controller (second domain controller is on another, older server I'm running; this old server also has a Microsoft TMG 2010 VM running)
Apps server (currently running Spiceworks and TeamSpeak 3 server)
Exchange 2013
Sophos UTM
SCCM 2012
SharePoint 2007
SharePoint 2010 (2 environments, each with multiple VMs)
SharePoint 2013 (2 environments, each with multiple VMs)
SQL 2008
SQL 2012
Several workstations for my job
A media center VM I was testing with my network HDHomeRun tuner

The workstations run GREAT and I depend on many of them for my job, as each typically is configured with VPN connectivity for a specific client. I think in your case, however, you're probably wanting a system to boot to a VM's desktop. That is possible but I believe would require additional software and possibly hardware.

 

[smakme7757]

That's pretty nice. What are the bottlenecks if any? and how many VMs do you have, and how much RAM do you allocate to each? Are you using dynamic memory?

The major bottleneck is the RAM. Currently i use around 14GB for my 24/7 machines. But the left over 18GB isn't really enough for my Lab enviroment which is quite large.

I use Dynamic memory which gives me a lot of flexibility, but RAM is still a problem.

I suppose the only other bottleneck is my 2x 1TB drives for my primary VMs, but they are static and don't use much IO, so it isn't really a problem.

All i really want is more RAM, IndyColtsFan system is where i would like to be after i start full time employment at the end of my degree. Being a student doesn't leave much room for a big server economically.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

All i really want is more RAM, IndyColtsFan system is where i would like to be after i start full time employment at the end of my degree. Being a student doesn't leave much room for a big server economically.

Yeah, and RAM prices are ridiculous right now too. When I built the server, 16 GB ECC DIMMs were around $120 each and the 32 GB DIMMs were around $1000 (!!) each. The 32 GB DIMMs actually dropped pretty quickly and were in the $500-$600 range IIRC, but they're back up to between $700 and $800. The 16 GB DIMMs went up to around $220 IIRC but have dropped back down to a more reasonable $180. I've populated my board with 16 GB DIMMs so far and at 128 GB, I think I'm OK for now though I've been tempted to add another 32 GB. I'd like to add a "fast" array of SSDs at some point and put servers like SQL on it. Supermicro also released an upgraded BIOS and now certifies my board for up to 1 TB of RAM, so I should be set for awhile assuming ECC DDR3 DIMMs of the capacity necessary to hit 1 TB (64 GB, IIRC) are released at decent prices at some point.

Before this guy, my server was based on a Q6600 with 8 GB of RAM (max I could go) and six 750 GB drives in RAID 5. I built that guy in 2007 and the RAM became an issue for me, though amazingly I could get 6 or 7 VMs running if I was careful. Back then I used VMware Server but eventually I upgraded that old server to Windows 2008 R2 and now use Hyper V on it and run two VMs -- a second DC and a TMG server. I'm looking to replace it with a NUC at some point. I'm considering mothballing the old box when I get the NUC and at some point, maybe rebuilding it into a NAS as it has a nice case.

 

[smakme7757]

Yeah, and RAM prices are ridiculous right now too. When I built the server, 16 GB ECC DIMMs were around $120 each and the 32 GB DIMMs were around $1000 (!!) each. The 32 GB DIMMs actually dropped pretty quickly and were in the $500-$600 range IIRC, but they're back up to between $700 and $800. The 16 GB DIMMs went up to around $220 IIRC but have dropped back down to a more reasonable $180. I've populated my board with 16 GB DIMMs so far and at 128 GB, I think I'm OK for now though I've been tempted to add another 32 GB. I'd like to add a "fast" array of SSDs at some point and put servers like SQL on it. Supermicro also released an upgraded BIOS and now certifies my board for up to 1 TB of RAM, so I should be set for awhile assuming ECC DDR3 DIMMs of the capacity necessary to hit 1 TB (64 GB, IIRC) are released at decent prices at some point.

Before this guy, my server was based on a Q6600 with 8 GB of RAM (max I could go) and six 750 GB drives in RAID 5. I built that guy in 2007 and the RAM became an issue for me, though amazingly I could get 6 or 7 VMs running if I was careful. Back then I used VMware Server but eventually I upgraded that old server to Windows 2008 R2 and now use Hyper V on it and run two VMs -- a second DC and a TMG server. I'm looking to replace it with a NUC at some point. I'm considering mothballing the old box when I get the NUC and at some point, maybe rebuilding it into a NAS as it has a nice case.

Indeed. RAM prices have skyrocketed. Both myself and a friend purchased our 32GB kits for our servers a year or so ago for around $200 here in Norway (Just did a quick conversion). Todays price, and i mean i just checked: $450 for the exact same set of DIMMs!

Reusability of old servers is pretty high. If you dedicate it to a single job they can pretty much do anything depending on load, but for home use it isn't usually a problem. I guess it just depends on physical space.

But visualization isn't cheap!

 

[Chiefcrowe]

Why has RAM gone up so much? I haven't been following..

IndyColtsFan - your setup sounds great! I have a server at work which also ran into the ram wall and I upgraded to 96 GB. I am going to buy a new server later this year to run 2012 R2 and I am planning to go for 192 GB (128 GB minimum)!

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Why has RAM gone up so much? I haven't been following..

I've heard because many manufacturers have switched over to manufacturing flash memory since the demand is so high. Not sure if that is true or not.

IndyColtsFan - your setup sounds great! I have a server at work which also ran into the ram wall and I upgraded to 96 GB. I am going to buy a new server later this year to run 2012 R2 and I am planning to go for 192 GB (128 GB minimum)!

My advice is to go with the largest DIMMs you can afford, even if it means starting out with less RAM initially. I personally wouldn't go below 16 GB DIMMs and I would really love to see 32 GB DIMMs drop into the $250/$300 range (dreaming, I know). I've been close to pulling the trigger on another 32 GB of RAM multiple times but backed off and instead, shuffled some of my VMs around and turned some off that really weren't needed. I think if the 32 GB DIMMs remain high and if the 16 GB DIMMs drop back into the $125 range, I may just finish off populating the server and be satisfied with 256 GB of RAM.

 

[sourceninja]

I run my network with an old HP DL380G6 server I bought off ebay.

It has 96G of ram and 8x300 sas disks at 10000rpm.

I run the following vms.

1 unifi controller for my ubiquiti access points.
1 plex media server
1 file server
1 development server (for a project i'm working on with python)

Then on a different vlan It also runs my lab work. Currently this is a a set of vm's that are running a hyper-v cluster for DR testing.

All of that is hooked up to an ubiquiti edgemax lite router and a Dell 5324 layer 2 managed switch. I have 3 unifi access points providing wireless around the house.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

Thank you, I will definitely keep that in mind about the DIMM size.

I've heard because many manufacturers have switched over to manufacturing flash memory since the demand is so high. Not sure if that is true or not.



My advice is to go with the largest DIMMs you can afford, even if it means starting out with less RAM initially. I personally wouldn't go below 16 GB DIMMs and I would really love to see 32 GB DIMMs drop into the $250/$300 range (dreaming, I know). I've been close to pulling the trigger on another 32 GB of RAM multiple times but backed off and instead, shuffled some of my VMs around and turned some off that really weren't needed. I think if the 32 GB DIMMs remain high and if the 16 GB DIMMs drop back into the $125 range, I may just finish off populating the server and be satisfied with 256 GB of RAM.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I run my network with an old HP DL380G6 server I bought off ebay.

It has 96G of ram and 8x300 sas disks at 10000rpm.

I run the following vms.

1 unifi controller for my ubiquiti access points.
1 plex media server
1 file server
1 development server (for a project i'm working on with python)

Then on a different vlan It also runs my lab work. Currently this is a a set of vm's that are running a hyper-v cluster for DR testing.

All of that is hooked up to an ubiquiti edgemax lite router and a Dell 5324 layer 2 managed switch. I have 3 unifi access points providing wireless around the house.

I'd really like to eventually deploy Ubiquiti access points in my home and patio as well, but I'm hoping their AC units will drop in price. Right now, I've sort of got a hodgepodge of devices -- a DIR-655 as my main wireless AP upstairs, a DAP-1522 providing 5 Ghz coverage over my patio, and an Amped Wireless SR10000 providing coverage on my main floor.