Building an ESXi machine

[idea]

So I keep hearing that ESX/ESXi are cranky about what hardware they run on. I tried to look at the Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) that VMware provides on their website, is it just me or is it impossible to navigate?

Anyway, I already have SATA hard drives for the build. I need a motherboard, CPU, and RAM. I would be buying Intel, likely ICH9/10 or better with a Q6600 or better. Would it be safe to say ESXi would run on this combo with no problems?

Also I'd like to run the hard drives in RAID5. ESXi has no softraid capability, so I'd have to have the BIOS handle it. Would this be a problem?

 

[yinan]

Unless I am mistaken ESX/ESXi will not run virtual machines on SATA drives. In order to use SATA drives at all, you need a relatively high end RAID controller. The HCL has actually gotten better than it used to be

 

[xSauronx]

I was looking into the same thing but its too picky about the hardware. Linux and KVM or XEN would work, or maybe server 2008 (dunno what the hardware reqs are, or how picky it is, it wouldnt install on my new rig so i said screw it) with its virtual machine manager.

 

[Syran]

ESXi will run on SATA just fine; however, since it's basically a file; it will take a LOT more hits on it then you would see normally on a computer just running off a hard drive.
I currently have a test server at work running ESXi. It has 2 Opteron 265 processors and 8GB of ram; with 4 hard drives (1x 200gb, 3x 80gb) all sata, running off a Sil3114 controller card which is built into the TYAN motherboard it runs on. I have tried loading ESXi onto normal computers as well, with little success. Here's what i've found so far, in my testing.

#1 ESXi will run fine on normal consumer grade hardware with a few exceptions. Primarily, it does not like most on-board sata controllers (Intel's ICH series, or AMD). It seems to work well with most raid controllers out there however. Also, I would not recommend using a soft raid controller, either keep everything as seperate datastores, OR, invest in a good, decent Hardware Raid controller.
#2 You will want fast hard drives. If you can find them available at a decent price, go with SAS 15kRPM, or at least 10Ks. If you stick with sata, check out WD Enterprise/Caviar Black series Hard Drives.
#3 Memory, Memory, Memory, Memory, and more Memory. This is of upmost importance, and should not be undercut. I'm currently running 5 active servers on my ESXi box. It tends to consume around 2-3Ghz of processor (combined), and approximately 6GB of available memory. This is the biggest issue with using consumer grade (vs. enterprise/workstation) type equipment; it has much lower memory allowances. Even if you have a server that only needs 1GB of guest memory, it could consume much more then that. So you need tons, this will be the downfall of pricing this machine imho; depending on what you are looking to do.
#4 CPU is actually not usually all the worry, my machine has 4x 1.8Ghz processors, and ESXi actually considers them more in tandem then anything else, unlike the typical consideration of multiple threads, so really, while I'm starting to get to my memory threshold, i'm not even close on the processor side of things.

All that said now, if you are testing, you may want to see if you can find cheap server memory, and maybe outfit something a bit older like I did. In the end run, when I get my first production server running; I'm planning for a single quad core (with option for a 2nd), and a minimum of 32GB of ram, with the option to move it to 64GB. I will also be doing 10k SAS drives.

 

[idea]

Ugh, this sounds really complicated for my purposes. I can't believe it doesn't work with Intel ICH. There is no way to do this cheaply, is there?

 

[Syran]

ESX/ESXi were designed to be used on server hardware. They are designed to run on bare-metal without any additional software between the hardware and the VM.
You may want to look at VMware Server instead, which is designed to run on top of a host OS.

FAQ defining the differences.

Oh, and what exactly is your purpose for running VM? To segregate windows sessions? to consolidate servers? etc.?

 

[VinylxScratches]

I was going to do this but I ended up using Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 for Windows based OSs and VirtualBox for Linux based distros. I'm running Windows XP Pro as the base OS.

 

[tarbelly]

Originally posted by: Syran
ESX/ESXi were designed to be used on server hardware. They are designed to run on bare-metal without any additional software between the hardware and the VM.
You may want to look at VMware Server instead, which is designed to run on top of a host OS.

FAQ defining the differences.

Yep, he's right. Or you can put up the bucks for VMware workstation

 

[idea]

I was using VMware Server 2.0 for a few weeks but I could not find out why it was causing a kernel panic under heavy disk I/O load. Even when no VMs were loaded up, just the server running idle, on a clean install of ubuntu server. I suppose I could start RMA'ing parts, rebuild the machine and continue running VMware Server but I really wanted to try ESXi

 

[Syran]

Just out of question, what are you VMing? You could probably just get away with consumer hardware and a simple sata card (just don't think of doing any form of raid without something more beefy in the that respect). But I'll tell ya, Ram has definately been the eye-opener for me. Those 5 servers I have running, 3 were converted from old machines with P4 2.4s and 512MB of ram, and all 3 tend to use 1.5-2GB of ram to run them on the VM, even if they only tend to use < 25% of the guest memory allotment most of the time.

The other thing to note about ESXi, is that it's designed as a complete remote interface. You would download the client onto another computer, and access all yours VMs that way, or thru some form of Remote Desktop software. You can't sit at the machine and configure or interface with the VMs.

 

[idea]

Less than 10 light duty linux servers. VMware Server would be perfect for me if it was stable. I planned on building an ESXi server eventually, I'm sort of intrigued by the concept of a bare-metal hypervisor and I'd like to learn it.

I prefer remote interfaces. My servers are in a separate room.