TinkerTry's Xeon D-1540 fueled ESXi 6.0 home lab build begins LIVE!

Updates to this article below, and lots of pictures now available too!

A second camera view is now available, without the desktop shown, here. Rather than hours of arduous video editing to join the best of both videos together, time is probably better spent doing a new much shorter new video, focused on the physical attributes of the system. Stay tuned!

Here's an archive of the event here, then click Q&A.

JUN 30 2015 Update - New "deep dive inside" 38 minute video now available.

Back in April 2015, you witnessed my enthusiasm over this new affordable and efficient server-class Xeon D-1500 (Broadwell-DE) processor series here:

• Intel Xeon D-1500 crams incredible virtualization lab specs into tiny mITX size, codename Broadwell-DE

Tuesday June 23rd, this elusive little animal first surfaces at Wiredzone, as you sensed my trepidation when pulling that trigger by placing my order for the very new Supermicro SuperServer 5028D-TN4T (with a Xeon D-1540 CPU inside) here:

• Supermicro SuperServer mini-tower ordered with 64GB of memory for $1900 starts the ultimate 24x7 home virtualization lab

And now, you want to join in and Google Hangout On Air, to see the fun begin.

Come on over and join me at TinkerTry LIVE tonight, Thursday June 25 2015, starting at 8pm eastern!

I plan to:

1. Unbox - Won't take long, less than 1 cubic foot total volume.
2. Design - Let's pop the hood, and have a look at the layout of the components.
3. Install Memory - Those 2 32GB DIMMs.
4. Install Storage - Stick a little M.2 storage on that bad boy mobo.
5. Power Up! - Fire this puppy up live, showing watt burn every step of the way. Yeah, new stuff takes 20 years right off me.
6. Memory Test - MemTest86 shouldn't take more than a few days to test those 64GBs ;-)
7. IPMI - While that's running, let's give IPMI's keyboard-video-mouse-over-IP feature a shot.
8. ESXi 6.0 Hypervisor - Wrap-up by getting a little VMware ESXi 6.0 installation started.

Should be fun!

Details of the Google Hangout On Air will be posted right here in this article, come on back and refresh.

JUN 25 2015 Update 10:27pm

JUN 26 2015 Update

The event went fairly smoothly, but the Google On Air experience is a bit confusing for the attendees, and asking questions was clumsy. Despite all that, we wound up with up to 17 folks joining the 2 hour hangout. Thank you!

I made some fun gaffes near the end, and didn't wind up covering ESXi 6.0 much, since it seemed that ESXi 6.0 didn't see the network adapters by default, but I was wrong. I was using a (unlabeled) 10GB port, which doesn't have a driver load by default. Oh well.

During the video, you'll also see the moment when I noticed that my mSATA to M.2 adapter couldn't fit: the PCI slot mechanically obstructed it. Another very minor issue was that it seemed the SATA signal cable for the top-most 2.5 drive bay was a bit short, given the way the wire tie had been assembled. I simply clipped the wire tie, all was well in the universe again. The cable reaches fine. I later installed a wire tie a little looser. Note in one picture, the mSATA drive is now in an 2.5 enclosure. This worked around the minor M.2 issue. Of course, once I get an actual M.2 SSD, it will fit on the motherboard just fine. It would seems a stand-off of some sort will be needed though, with the manual unclear on that point.

Enjoy the series of picture I took for you, with many more at STH here, a thin attempt to make up for the blurry video.

Shop

Supermicro SuperServer 5028D-TN4T
at Wiredzone

Not available on Amazon or Newegg, I got my system (CPU/mobo/power/mini-tower pre-assembled) at Wiredzone for the reasons outlined here. If you appreciate the information and videos you've found here at TinkerTry, and you decide to buy, please consider using the above link.

See also at TinkerTry

• Deep dive inside video of the Supermicro SuperServer 5028D-TN4T including component installation
  JUL 02 2015

• Supermicro SuperServer 5028D-TN4T Photo Gallery
  JUL 01 2015

• Installing Windows on the Supermicro SuperServer 5028D-TN4T
  JUL 01 2015

• Intel Xeon D-1500 SoC 10GbE X552/X557-AT 10GBASE-T VIB for ESXi 6.0 support?
  JUN 30 2015

• Supermicro SuperServer 5028D-TN4T accessories and aspirations
  JUN 29 2015

• Supermicro SuperServer 5028D-TN4T first impressions
  JUN 26 2015

• TinkerTry's Xeon D-1540 fueled ESXi 6.0 home lab build begins LIVE!
  JUN 25 2015

• Supermicro SuperServer mini-tower ordered with 64GB of memory for $1900, the ultimate home virtualization lab?
  JUN 23 2015

• Intel Xeon D-1500 crams incredible virtualization lab specs into tiny mITX size, codename Broadwell-DE
  MAR 09 2015

• Nice little USB flash drive choice for that ESXi in your home lab
  JAN 31 2015

• Superguide: Home virtualization server enthusiasts' colorful variety of ESXi whiteboxes
  JAN 05 2015

See also

• Supermicro SuperServer 5028D-TN4T User's Manual
  JUN 01 2015, by Supermicro

• Supermicro SYS-5028D-TN4T Review small box – big power
  MAY 13 2015, by Patrick Kennedy at Serve The Home

• Intel Xeon D – Intel SoC Changing the low end with Broadwell-DE
  MAR 09 2015, by Patrick Kennedy at Serve The Home

• Supermicro X10SDV-TLN4F Review – A must get platform
  APR 13 2015, by Patrick Kennedy at Serve The Home, here's an excerpt:

BOTTOM LINE:
With four port Ethernet (two 10Gbase-T and two 1Gbase-T), solid storage m.2 PCIe x4 and 6x SATA III, a fast and low power CPU (Intel Xeon D-1540) and 128GB of RAM, the Supermicro X10SDV-TLN4F is a must get platform. For those still using Intel Xeon L5520 or L5620 generation processors, one can get more performance in less than half of the power and space footprint which is astounding. For those that always wanted more than the Xeon E3 line could offer in terms of their limited RAM capacity (practical 32GB limit) and core count (4C/ 8T max), this is the answer.