Virtualized unRAID


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My biggest concern with the free version of ESXi 5.0 will be the 8 GB vRAM limit across all guests.

 

Yes, this will be a major problem for anyone with DDR3 capable boards.  I'm still running DDR2 with an 8GB limit, but that barely meets my needs.  the whole vRAM licensing model is completely messed up, especially with as low as they have set the limits per license.  It will cost me 2-3 times what it used to for licenses where I work.

 

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If hardware is supported in a previous version it is almost always supported in a later version.  Has held true for 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, and 4.1 so far.  Most compatibility problems come from using consumber based motherboards, storage, network, and trying to shove non-server based hardware into it (TV tuner cards).  The motherboard he used is server grade, NIC is Intel, and storage is industry standard LSI.  Chances are it will work.

 

(I work with ESX for a living)

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Sigh.... I thought I could be content with my low power atom build, and run a second server for the intermittent extra load... you've destroyed that illusion. I was planning to upgrade to a NORCO case while the wife is on vacation next month, but now I'm going to have to order a whole new hardware setup.

 

.....

 

I feel your pain..

 

My ESXi box is going to replace no less then 4, possibly 6 Atom based servers.

 

about 2 years ago, I decided to replace my old rack of rack mount servers with a "homemade blade server" of 6 atom servers. it cut the power consumption way down and cut the noise to zero from deafening.

 

Now I am going back to a rack mount box. but one massive server to run a huge number of guests on.

 

My guess is that in the end. The 1 monster ESXi box will cost close to that of the the pile of atoms and again use even less electricity and offer better performance for the hosts that need it.

 

then again. don't underestimate the power of the atom! I Took one of my book sized atom to work for a desktop rollout this week. it is running 2008r2 with DC and AD duties, dhcp services, PXE boot server and ghost server. It has a set of ssds and is pushing out about 1000-1500 workstations nonstop all week via 4+ simultaneous  multicasts and chilling at 10% cpu and 12% memory and fully saturated gigabit.. they can be workhorses .. er mules?

all of this while the ESXi box that had the ghost server they built for this project sits idol due to a failed sans. I just have to laugh at the irony..

 

back on topic. I am about done stress testing my new ESXi box and will be moving unraid to it. I honestly was planing on moving my second unraid to it, it now looks like I'll run my primary unraid on it.. who knows, maybe I'll run both on it?

 

I plan to document my experiences for others to learn from my errors.

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