TinkerTry'd SuperServer featured at Virtualization Review "The Quest for the Right Virtual Home Lab Server"
Recently, I caught up with Rick Vanover of Veeam, aka, The RICKATRON. He mentioned in passing an article about home lab cravings. Nice to see somebody else noticing the promise of Intel's long-awaited Xeon D-1540/1541 SoC (System on a Chip), in the compact design of the Supermicro SuperServer SYS-5028D-TN4T. See also some fun, related videos below.
Rick's post is from September, but a lot has happened since. Figured I'd go ahead and encourage you to check out his article for yourself!
Oh, and a copy of the comments I left for Rick, but with links:
Wow Rick, thanks for pointing out this post that I hadn't yet spotted during your recent v9 briefing, greatly appreciated.
Good news, 10GbE support for ESXi 6.0 has arrived! TinkerTry.com/intel-x552-x557-10gbe-vmware-vib-expected-nov-2015 and there's a PCIe and M.2 slot for those way-faster-than-SATA3 drives 7 and 8, all working nicely under ESXi 6.0 now too TinkerTry.com/tinkertry-superserver-home-lab-storage-configuration.
This system runs between 40 watts (idle) and 100 watts under load, meaning 24x7 operations (like daily VEB jobs), saving me thousands in electricity and cooling over these next ~4 years of service to my home lab. I'd rather spend on NVMe SSDs than electricity.
Rick, didn't forget your mention of proper shutdown, no problem, USB signal cable from $129 UPS will do nicely, with >10K readers of this article about the lightweight VM that handles simple automated graceful shutdown of your home datacenter TinkerTry.com/configure-automated-shutdown-homelab-datacenter-15-minutes.
The Supermicro SuperServer SYS-5028D-TN4T is at a completely different level than the memory and NIC constrained Intel NUC. Two 1GbE and two 10GbE, all thanks to Intel's SoC (System on a Chip) 6.7" square motherboard design, with a real CPU, a beefy octacore Xeon. Just $500 USD gets you 64GB of DDR4 RAM, or go all the way to 128GB for $500 more. All bundles even include the USB flash drive for your ESXi 6.0, is burn-in tested, and priced hundreds lower than other Supermicro resellers. Just add your own drives. Bundle pricing details including new EU shipping option at TinkerTry.com/superservers.
Enough already, back to tinkering with my All Flash vSAN tonight, using a pair of World's Fastest Consumer SSDs (Samsung 950 PRO NVMe M.2 SSD)
TinkerTry.com/samsung-950-pro-benchmark-results-superserver-sys-5028d-tn4t.Not sure how it'll turn out, but sure is nice to have 10GbE between the two, and whatever happens, I'll learn something!
Fastest backup in the world! 10GbE, Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE, Samsung 950 PRO NVMe SSDs
Deploying a Windows 10 VM from a template can take a mere 18 seconds
See also at TinkerTry
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World's fastest consumer SSD - Samsung 950 PRO M.2 NVMe benchmark results
- Superguide: Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE
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