September 22, 201312 yr I'm researching parts which would be suitable for a VM/SFF build and wanted to see what you guys thought. I'm not sure which controller card is safe for use with ESXi & I'm looking for something available in Canada that supports 8 drives for ~US$150. System used for: unRAID VM, 1-3 more VMs not doing much; linux/minecraft server, torrenting, maybe light transcoding. CPU: Intel Core i5-4570S 2.9GHz Quad-Core $204.99 Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1150 (specifications here) $129.99 Memory: 16GB Patriot (2x8GB) PV316G160C0K $149.99 SSD: Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB $139.99 HDD: 3x 1TB WD Black (Freebies ) $0 Controller Card: ? Case: Lian-Li PC-Q25B $132.98 PSU: SeaSonic 360W 80 PLUS Gold (Single 12V @ 30A) $59.99 Total: $817.93 - already over budget without controller card I'm not sure if the NICs on the above motherboard are supported, one is an Intel the other is an Atheros but I don't know the exact chipsets. If they don't work perfectly I won't be able to add a NIC because ITX boards only have one expansion slot and this will be used by my RAID card.
September 29, 201312 yr I think overall your build is solid, though if you are planning to passthrough the HBA, make sure the motherboard supports VT-d. I would check the measurements on whatever CPU HSF you are getting to make sure it's not going to interfere with the PCIE slot. I haven't seen benchmarks on Haswell S-series processors, but previous consumer S-series processors were generally not worth the premium unless you are really constrained by power or thermal envelope (which you shouldn't be in this case) because the non-S processors idle at pretty much the same power level as the S ones. Interesting that it's a few bucks cheaper in this case. I would still take the headroom of the non-S version, but I can't fault someone for taking the cheaper option. After perusing the motherboard manual, it appears the Intel NIC is a i217v, which is apparently not supported out of the box by ESXi. You will need to see if there's a driver you can add or that may be a deal breaker. No idea on the Atheros NIC. You might be able to find a driver, you might not. Hard to tell without more specific info. You may want to add something like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815201028 or this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812400316 for your flash drives (one for ESXi and one for unRAID). Obviously you have external ports you can use as well. How are you planning on dividing up your drives? What's going to be used for ESXi datastores and what's going to unRAID or are you going to run datastores on NFS shared from unRAID?
September 29, 201312 yr Oh, and to directly answer your question about what HBA to use, I would enquire about the willingness of individuals in the For Sale area of this forum to ship to Canada. My first choice would be m1015 (preflashed to LSI IT firmware preferably) which I use with no issue with ESXi, but most of the popular ones folks are selling will work in ESXi out of the box or with very minor tweaking.
September 29, 201312 yr Author I think overall your build is solid, though if you are planning to passthrough the HBA, make sure the motherboard supports VT-d. I would check the measurements on whatever CPU HSF you are getting to make sure it's not going to interfere with the PCIE slot. I haven't seen benchmarks on Haswell S-series processors, but previous consumer S-series processors were generally not worth the premium unless you are really constrained by power or thermal envelope (which you shouldn't be in this case) because the non-S processors idle at pretty much the same power level as the S ones. Interesting that it's a few bucks cheaper in this case. I would still take the headroom of the non-S version, but I can't fault someone for taking the cheaper option. After perusing the motherboard manual, it appears the Intel NIC is a i217v, which is apparently not supported out of the box by ESXi. You will need to see if there's a driver you can add or that may be a deal breaker. No idea on the Atheros NIC. You might be able to find a driver, you might not. Hard to tell without more specific info. You may want to add something like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815201028 or this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812400316 for your flash drives (one for ESXi and one for unRAID). Obviously you have external ports you can use as well. How are you planning on dividing up your drives? What's going to be used for ESXi datastores and what's going to unRAID or are you going to run datastores on NFS shared from unRAID? Should be OK with VT-d support, in the specifications it has the following BIOS option: VT-d Enables or disables Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O. (Default: Enabled) I was planning on using the stock HSF unless I run into overheating issues but thanks for the heads-up about the clearance, I'll keep it in mind. As far as the CPU choice goes, I was pretty much after the cheapest CPU which supported ESXi and the S just happened to also be slightly cheaper. Interesting point about the idle power usage, good to know! Regarding the intel NIC - I haven't had any experience with ESXi, do you know if there is much involved in adding an additional driver? Thanks for the links to the USB risers, will definitely consider adding one to the parts list. I was planning on using the SSD for ESXi/VMs and all the HDDs for unRAID bulk storage.
September 29, 201312 yr Adding new drivers is pretty straightforward, but the better news is that it's simple to do before you do your initial install using ESXi Customizer (https://code.google.com/p/esxi-customizer/). This link (http://www.servethehome.com/install-vmware-esxi-5x-intel-i210-intel-i350-ethernet-adapters/) will walk you through the process. ServeTheHome, both the site and the forums, is an excellent resource. There are a number of us on this forum who also post over there. It appears someone has created an unofficial driver that supports the i217: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1765579 If you can find a similar one for the Atheros NIC, you should be in good shape. I've been pondering creating a Mini-ITX ESXi + unRAID machine for backup/redundancy to keep somewhere other than my server rack, but I've run into similar cost and hardware configuration issues. Avoton/Rangeley has brought some intriguing new options to the form factor, but it's early days yet. I'll be interested to follow your build.
September 29, 201312 yr I don't do any virtualization on my server (CPU doesn't support it). That said I can verify that the mini-ITX board in my build does support VT-d. Info in sig.
September 29, 201312 yr Author Hey man, I've seen your build- it's sweet. Personally though I avoid ASUS motherboards like the plague, I've just had too many bad experiences and weird problems which were fixed by a replacement board. I'm considering forking out for a SuperMicro but I don't know if there is a good candidate in mITX.
September 29, 201312 yr Hey man, I've seen your build- it's sweet. Personally though I avoid ASUS motherboards like the plague, I've just had too many bad experiences and weird problems which were fixed by a replacement board. I'm considering forking out for a SuperMicro but I don't know if there is a good candidate in mITX. I've had the opposite experience. I'm a big fan of Asus motherboards, I've owned more than a dozen over the years, and I've never had a single problem with any of them. Asus products are pretty damn bullet-proof in my experience. Supermicro has a few mobos in mITX. Most have an embedded Atom or embedded i7 mobile CPU, but they also make one or two with a G2 socket. Nothing I'd personally consider a good candidate.
November 1, 201312 yr I think overall your build is solid, though if you are planning to passthrough the HBA, make sure the motherboard supports VT-d. I would check the measurements on whatever CPU HSF you are getting to make sure it's not going to interfere with the PCIE slot. I haven't seen benchmarks on Haswell S-series processors, but previous consumer S-series processors were generally not worth the premium unless you are really constrained by power or thermal envelope (which you shouldn't be in this case) because the non-S processors idle at pretty much the same power level as the S ones. Interesting that it's a few bucks cheaper in this case. I would still take the headroom of the non-S version, but I can't fault someone for taking the cheaper option. After perusing the motherboard manual, it appears the Intel NIC is a i217v, which is apparently not supported out of the box by ESXi. You will need to see if there's a driver you can add or that may be a deal breaker. No idea on the Atheros NIC. You might be able to find a driver, you might not. Hard to tell without more specific info. You may want to add something like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815201028 or this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812400316 for your flash drives (one for ESXi and one for unRAID). Obviously you have external ports you can use as well. How are you planning on dividing up your drives? What's going to be used for ESXi datastores and what's going to unRAID or are you going to run datastores on NFS shared from unRAID? I second the notion that the S processors are not worth it. You are not gaining anything by using it. All of the Haswell chips, with low power states enabled, idle at damn near the same wattage. All the S chip is doing, essentially, is throttling itself to keep it "low power". Stick with a standard chip and you will have a good amount more performance headroom int he future, if ever necessary.
November 19, 201312 yr I'm researching parts which would be suitable for a VM/SFF build and wanted to see what you guys thought. I'm not sure which controller card is safe for use with ESXi & I'm looking for something available in Canada that supports 8 drives for ~US$150. System used for: unRAID VM, 1-3 more VMs not doing much; linux/minecraft server, torrenting, maybe light transcoding. CPU: Intel Core i5-4570S 2.9GHz Quad-Core $204.99 Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1150 (specifications here) $129.99 Memory: 16GB Patriot (2x8GB) PV316G160C0K $149.99 SSD: Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB $139.99 HDD: 3x 1TB WD Black (Freebies ) $0 Controller Card: ? Case: Lian-Li PC-Q25B $132.98 PSU: SeaSonic 360W 80 PLUS Gold (Single 12V @ 30A) $59.99 Total: $817.93 - already over budget without controller card I'm not sure if the NICs on the above motherboard are supported, one is an Intel the other is an Atheros but I don't know the exact chipsets. If they don't work perfectly I won't be able to add a NIC because ITX boards only have one expansion slot and this will be used by my RAID card. Second hand i5 3470s can be had in UK for less than £100. Solid VM CPU. Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
November 19, 201312 yr I'm researching parts which would be suitable for a VM/SFF build and wanted to see what you guys thought. I'm not sure which controller card is safe for use with ESXi & I'm looking for something available in Canada that supports 8 drives for ~US$150. System used for: unRAID VM, 1-3 more VMs not doing much; linux/minecraft server, torrenting, maybe light transcoding. CPU: Intel Core i5-4570S 2.9GHz Quad-Core $204.99 Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1150 (specifications here) $129.99 Memory: 16GB Patriot (2x8GB) PV316G160C0K $149.99 SSD: Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB $139.99 HDD: 3x 1TB WD Black (Freebies ) $0 Controller Card: ? Case: Lian-Li PC-Q25B $132.98 PSU: SeaSonic 360W 80 PLUS Gold (Single 12V @ 30A) $59.99 Total: $817.93 - already over budget without controller card I'm not sure if the NICs on the above motherboard are supported, one is an Intel the other is an Atheros but I don't know the exact chipsets. If they don't work perfectly I won't be able to add a NIC because ITX boards only have one expansion slot and this will be used by my RAID card. A second hand i5 3470 can be had in UK for less than £100. Solid VM CPU. Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
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