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Actually yeah I had a 3560x-24 on my desk the other day and I was surprised by how reasonably quiet it was
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Jan 7, 2015 16:01
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Rats, was hoping they wouldn't be so pricey. Thanks for the info though. 
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Jan 8, 2015 14:49
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thebigcow posted:I'm looking for a smart switch on the cheap. I've had Dell Powerconnect 5324 suggested in the past and I see a bunch on ebay in the 50-60 range. Seconding whoever suggested the 5324. I bought one off of eBay a few years back and the thing is bombproof. Managable, web interface, SNMP MIB support, fiber slots, etc. Unless you need a Cisco interface for studying for labs or whatnot, I can't see why you wouldn't buy one of these.
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Jan 9, 2015 02:45
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Cactus Jack posted:Rats, was hoping they wouldn't be so pricey. Thanks for the info though. Not sure how much you were looking to spend: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3689858
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Jan 10, 2015 17:02
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Been considering picking up this equipment set to study with http://netcertlabs.com/store/the-ccna-voice-enhanced-complete-cisco-voip-study-lab-kit-with-training-support The price tag has me breathing heavy though. I don't know if I can justify to myself spending that much in one shot, hough it does come with a lot...anyone have thoughts on it? mythicknight fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Jan 13, 2015 |
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Jan 13, 2015 17:29
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I'm looking to set up a dedicated PC for RHCSA/MCSA studying; I'd like to run ESXi with CentOS/Windows Server 2008 (or 2012). Is this Lenovo still going to be the best option for the money? http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkS...novo+70a4001lux The ram is a bit low but I plan to upgrade that down the line, and I've got a PCI Intel gigabit card if the onboard NIC isn't ESXi compatible.
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Jan 24, 2015 19:59
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I'm doing the CCNA: Wireless cert studies and picked up a Cisco 4402 controller and a few 1142 APs. It'll be nice to both be able to study using the gear and step into the 21st century with a 802.11n wireless setup in my house. I'd been limping along with a 1st gen Linksys WRT54G flashed with DD-WRT since, oh, about 2003.
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Jan 24, 2015 20:13
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GobiasIndustries posted:I'm looking to set up a dedicated PC for RHCSA/MCSA studying; I'd like to run ESXi with CentOS/Windows Server 2008 (or 2012). Is this Lenovo still going to be the best option for the money? I finally pulled the trigger on a setup like this for ESXi. I'm installing on a USB stick to max out my SATA ports for ~things~.
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Jan 25, 2015 19:27
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I'm going to set up a lab for the CCNA and MCSA at work and start coming in on the weekends to study. What sort of hardware is going to benefit me most, or is it possible to use something like an old ProCurve I have lying around and GNS3 to full effect?
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Feb 1, 2015 21:32
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Chickenwalker posted:I'm going to set up a lab for the CCNA and MCSA at work and start coming in on the weekends to study. What sort of hardware is going to benefit me most, or is it possible to use something like an old ProCurve I have lying around and GNS3 to full effect? GNS3, yes. The Procurve, maybe not for a CCNA (which, while it teaches things well conceptually, is also a bit Cisco-ish and pairs best with a Cisco CLI for learning)
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Feb 1, 2015 22:36
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Chickenwalker posted:I'm going to set up a lab for the CCNA and MCSA at work and start coming in on the weekends to study. What sort of hardware is going to benefit me most, or is it possible to use something like an old ProCurve I have lying around and GNS3 to full effect? GNS3 is great, and don't even touch the procurve. The terminology differences will probably just confuse you. EG: HP untagged port = Cisco Native VLAN cisco trunk = a HP tagged port HP trunk = a cisco portchannel So when learning both at the same time, its just going to mess you up. You can do alot with GNS3 and its got pretty good. It can't do absolutely everything, although this isnt much of a problem for the CCNA, its more of an issue when youre getting into CCNP, etc. If you had to get physical kit, an 881, 891 router will do you nicely, with an older 2900 series or 3500 series switch.
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Feb 2, 2015 15:12
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What ever happened with the new GNS3 with full switching support that was up on Kickstarter? I tried Googleing for some updates on the project and didn't find much. I see they've put up a snazzy new website but it is so overwhelmingly full of marketing bullshit that I have no idea what is going on. And any links like News or FAQ seem to require me to register an account just to view it 
Docjowles fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Feb 2, 2015 |
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Feb 2, 2015 23:23
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Docjowles posted:What ever happened with the new GNS3 with full switching support that was up on Kickstarter? I tried Googleing for some updates on the project and didn't find much. Curious about that as well. Werent they supposed to launch the new version January of this year?
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Feb 2, 2015 23:24
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The new GNS3 is out but the only real support for cisco switching is using L2IOU images, though where to find said image I'm still confused about. The next best thing you can do is use Arista's vEOS and Virtualbox, which there's a video for(The GNS3 GUI is different but easy enough to figure out). Works pretty well and the vEOS image can be gotten right from Arista's website. Also the commands are essentially the same from what I've played with. Then of course there's the lazy fallback of using Etherswitch module for routers, which has a decent handful of switching stuff(enough to pass the CCNA from what I've read), but some of the commands are different enough to be annoying when you go look at an actual switch.
Zeratanis fucked around with this message at 08:19 on Feb 3, 2015 |
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Feb 3, 2015 08:14
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Let's go with the more hardware side of things: Anyone know where I can get four 20U or less square hole rack supports? I'm building a nice wooden enclosed rack that I'm going to put in my den which will fit in with some furniture. I've got the wood and plans picked out, but I'm having trouble sourcing the actual rails. I don't really need it to be 20U but if I buy 20U i have room to grow/shrink my design.
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Feb 3, 2015 20:07
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Martytoof posted:Let's go with the more hardware side of things: Your local metal shop. Honestly.
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Feb 3, 2015 22:38
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evol262 posted:Your local metal shop. Honestly. They've got angles that will pass as round holes, such as that of a telco rack, but nothing in the square hole area :[
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Feb 4, 2015 00:14
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eBay? http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=121515872130&alt=web Martytoof posted:They've got angles that will pass as round holes, such as that of a telco rack, but nothing in the square hole area :[
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Feb 4, 2015 01:06
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Thanks Didn't know if there was a better option than eBay which is why I asked. Though when it comes down to it I'll likely end up on eBay anyway 
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Feb 4, 2015 01:11
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Yeah you know what, gently caress cross border buying. I bought four square hole 20U rails and it came to $150-something Canadian after outrageous UPS shipping to Canada. Now UPS shows up and there's a $56 brokerage fee. Could literally have bought a pre-made rack locally for $200 and nailed some nice hardwood to it, at this rate.
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Mar 10, 2015 00:58
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Martytoof posted:Yeah you know what, gently caress cross border buying. I bought four square hole 20U rails and it came to $150-something Canadian after outrageous UPS shipping to Canada. Now UPS shows up and there's a $56 brokerage fee. Every Canadian needs to read this page on how to avoid UPS brokerage.
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Mar 10, 2015 01:51
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Wow. Haven't picked up the package yet (was at work) so I'm going to go ahead and do this tomorrow. Thanks!
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Mar 10, 2015 02:30
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If anyone lives in Western Australia (Perth-metro) and are looking at building a home lab for virtualisation then this may be of interest: https://www.auctions.com.au/auctions/2015/03/24/online-it-workstation-auction.html (Note that the majority of the workstations don't come with HDDs).
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Mar 28, 2015 09:04
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I picked up a barebones Lenovo TS440 about a month ago and I'm finally able to put a bit of money into upgrades. Two questions: 1. I've already ordered 16 gigs of ECC Ram, but when I install them, can I keep the single 4gig stick the server came with in there too, or will performance be impacted if I have one set paired and just an extra single stick? It's been a while since I've put a computer together and I can't remember. 2. Right now I'm running my two VMs off of a single 5400RPM 1TB drive I had lying around, so I'm going to order an SSD. I was looking at the 240gig 850EVO, but is 240gigs 'enough' to run several VMs? I know I can keep the old drive in there as well, but I'd like to spin up a few more linux VMs to run a few web servers off of, as well as a secondary DC and a few other Windows Server VMs for stuff that can't run on DCs. Windows client VMs to test with would be nice too, but I can spin those up on my laptop. GobiasIndustries fucked around with this message at 14:21 on Apr 5, 2015 |
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Apr 5, 2015 14:17
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I'll pass on the memory thing because I'm not familiar with the TS440, however I WILL say that my Dell R710 has a mish-mash of 50-something GB in an unmatched pattern and while I know this incurs a performance hit I can't say that I've really felt it on any of my VMs, and some of them are memory hungry. 240 isn't really going go be a lot for VMs unless you spin up with the bare disk requirements. If the drive was a 7200 I'd say that you would be OK leaving the DC and things on there, but since it's 5400 that's kind of going to kill you. Does the TS440 have a RAID card? If so you might want to maybe invest in a few smaller 7200RPM disks in a non-mirror RAID. I've got four 2TB 7200s in a RAID-6 and I'm planning to add an SSD as a flash cache to improve the speed, though IMHO it doesn't need any improving for everything I do with it.
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Apr 5, 2015 15:14
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GobiasIndustries posted:I picked up a barebones Lenovo TS440 about a month ago and I'm finally able to put a bit of money into upgrades. Two questions: My homelab is the TS440 and yes, you can use the other 4 gig stick for a total of 20Gb. RE: HDD. Don't use 5400 as a primary vm boot its going to be far too slow. I would recommend 2 240Gig ssd for VM boot images and the 5400 for data (extra drives like exchange, sql, or other services). They don't even have to be "nice" SDD drives, they can be cheap adata ones. Martytoof posted:Does the TS440 have a RAID card? It does not. incoherent fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Apr 5, 2015 |
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Apr 5, 2015 19:25
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Martytoof posted:I'll pass on the memory thing because I'm not familiar with the TS440, however I WILL say that my Dell R710 has a mish-mash of 50-something GB in an unmatched pattern and while I know this incurs a performance hit I can't say that I've really felt it on any of my VMs, and some of them are memory hungry. That's good to know; I couldn't remember how much of a performance hit, if any, having an extra stick would cause since it's been so long since I've had just a single stick in a system. Martytoof posted:240 isn't really going go be a lot for VMs unless you spin up with the bare disk requirements. If the drive was a 7200 I'd say that you would be OK leaving the DC and things on there, but since it's 5400 that's kind of going to kill you. Does the TS440 have a RAID card? If so you might want to maybe invest in a few smaller 7200RPM disks in a non-mirror RAID. I've got four 2TB 7200s in a RAID-6 and I'm planning to add an SSD as a flash cache to improve the speed, though IMHO it doesn't need any improving for everything I do with it. That is a good idea and one I hadn't thought of to be quite honest, but like incoherent mentioned, the software RAID on the motherboard isn't supported by ESXi apparently, so RAID right now is out of the question. incoherent posted:RE: HDD. Don't use 5400 as a primary vm boot its going to be far too slow. I would recommend 2 240Gig ssd for VM boot images and the 5400 for data (extra drives like exchange, sql, or other services). They don't even have to be "nice" SDD drives, they can be cheap adata ones. Yeah, the 5400RPM drive was just a stop-gap while I saved a bit more for the ram and HD upgrades; it's working OK so far, but I'm sure as soon as I spin up another VM or two it'll start crawling. There shouldn't be a problem with just picking one SSD up right now and tossing another one in there a few months down the line once I need the extra storage I hope? Edit: The 850EVO is only ~$10 more than the cheaper offerings right now so I'll probably just go with that one to be on the safe side. GobiasIndustries fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Apr 5, 2015 |
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Apr 5, 2015 23:51
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Yeah, no prob on dropping in additional HDD. Windows-style "next next next" sorta stuff in the GUI. Using my system as an example I have 4 distinct SSDs handling my VMs hanging off the mobo (some, literally) and they're speedy even if their garbage tier. HW RAID is a nice to have, but its not required. FreeNAS on the linux side and windows iscsi target and RAID can do the grunt work for you of simulating storage and network storage with very little config. Very neat stuff.
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Apr 6, 2015 02:06
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Solaris/Linux iscsi works very well for running VMs off.
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Apr 6, 2015 16:47
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Sup my abandoned friends in this abandoned thread. Any suggestions for backing up your home lab? Was thinking of an all-in-one solution, but I see two kinds of virtual machine which have their own needs. For VMs running on nested ESXi hosts, you can treat them exactly like you would a production vSphere deployment. Point a copy of Veeam at it and back it up. For VMs running in Workstation though, this is a little different. Within the context of the lab, these are your OS-on-baremetal servers, no hypervisor. How do we want to back these up? And most importantly, is there one product that seems to cover both kinds of servers, VM and baremetal? e2: I mean, if I'm honest, even since the time I posted this I've gotten settled on "oh just copy the entire virtual machine folder, who cares" for the baremetal servers, but I don't know, if there's one solution which lets me have graceful backups for both, that'd be ideal MC Fruit Stripe fucked around with this message at 23:56 on May 25, 2015 |
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May 25, 2015 23:33
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If you're looking for lab VM backup, get yourself an NFR license for Veeam B&R. Not the Free edition link, the ones near the bottom for VCP/MCP certified people. Link And no, they don't verify if you actually have a VCP/MCP. But don't lie, kids. Lying is wrong.
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May 27, 2015 05:20
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Holy potato, a fully functioning download of their flagship product? This is a great find, and I am now ecstatic that I posted my borderline incoherent question. Thank you! Hopefully my post makes any lick of sense, the distinction between baremetal and virtual VMs. Probably anyone who runs nested VMs got what I meant. MC Fruit Stripe fucked around with this message at 06:23 on May 27, 2015 |
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May 27, 2015 05:33
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My god, NFR for mcp peeps. This company keeps getting better.
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May 29, 2015 00:11
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I've been given $4000 (maybe $5000) towards hardware (no licensing costs in that) to build a home lab from the company I work at. I want to build a 3-2-1 vmware solution. What should I be looking at? I figured a QNAP for the iscsi storage, a couple of cheap gig-e switches and 3 white box hosts. Any hardware recommendations? Also, must be hardware compatible for vmware 6.0.
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Jun 12, 2015 17:47
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kiwid posted:I've been given $4000 (maybe $5000) towards hardware (no licensing costs in that) to build a home lab from the company I work at. I want to build a 3-2-1 vmware solution. Whiteboxes are fine. e3 Xeons if you want, but there are some reasonable (and cheap) workstation/"server" options from Dell and Lenovo. AMD's stuff is very reasonable for virt, especially on a budget, and for a lab. Get something with VT-d (intel) or IOMMU/AMD-Vi (AMD) support so you can pass through devices if you want to. I'd use a MicroServer for the storage, personally. QNAP performance is going to suck at that budget. Get fanless switches from your vendor of choice. They all have them, eBay is reasonable, and you should be able to get HP, Dell, or Cisco (Cisco's more, especially fanless, but you should still come in under $750 for 2 switches, and it's been a while since I looked). You may not want it right now, but get switches with LACP/802.3ad support. And a real (non-web) console.
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Jun 12, 2015 18:07
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evol262 posted:Whiteboxes are fine. e3 Xeons if you want, but there are some reasonable (and cheap) workstation/"server" options from Dell and Lenovo. AMD's stuff is very reasonable for virt, especially on a budget, and for a lab. Get something with VT-d (intel) or IOMMU/AMD-Vi (AMD) support so you can pass through devices if you want to. Thanks. As for the whitebox, I think I'm going to build this: http://www.ryanbirk.com/shuttle-sz87r6-vmware-esxi-5-5-home-lab/ The only thing I don't know is if it will work with VMware 6.0. Anyone running these?
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Jun 12, 2015 18:13
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kiwid posted:Thanks. Get a real case. And for "serious" labbing stuff you're going to want more than 4 NICs (6, probably). Plus the ability to add more for passthrough if you ever get there. That means, probably, more than 2 PCI e slots if you're already burning one for a dual/quad port NIC. 3+ would be good.
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Jun 12, 2015 18:31
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So, my original plan was that I wanted a "homelab version" of the common 3-2-1 or 2-2-1 solution but now I'm thinking that I'd rather just build a $2000 super white box computer with local storage and then virtualize the hosts. I'll lose out on playing with things like iscsi and mpio but I can figure out other ways to mess with that. Does anyone have any saved links on builds that are known to work with 6.0, or 5.5 at the least? kiwid fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Jun 19, 2015 |
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Jun 19, 2015 20:03
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I'd check out a Lenovo TS440. Just know that the TS440 doesn't come with drive caddies if you want to add your own drives, rather than get them from Lenovo at a premium. The optional RAID 500 card is a rebranded LSI 92xx series, which is supported by just about everything, including ESXi.
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Jun 20, 2015 16:35
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Apart from the lack of drive caddies, my TS440 is awesome for a single box. I've had it set up with ESXi 5.5 and 6.0 with no problems at all, though I can't remember if the onboard NIC is natively supported; I had an Intel gigabit NIC that I've been using and haven't had the need to connect the other one yet. You could build a pretty beefy TS440 and still have plenty left over in your $4k budget for two switches and a separate box for storage. edit: when I purchased my barebones TS440 in February it was only $300 (4gigs ram, no HDs but still the quad-core Xeon); it looks like prices may have gone up a bit since then.. GobiasIndustries fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Jun 20, 2015 |
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Jun 20, 2015 18:26
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