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I had three ESXi hosts at the beginning of 2023, now I have one and one proxmox. It's got a little learning curve but there's a lot of info online so it's not bad.
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Jan 16, 2024 23:51
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Theophany posted:Not sure if they've been posted here before, but there are US and UK private Facebook groups where IT pros sell off gear that their employers are retiring/they have swiped that sometimes have some great stuff at reasonable prices. If anybody knows an AU equivalent for this, I need it. I'm sick of people trying to flog their 10 year old Dell PowerEdge for $10K "because it cost them $50K new."
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Jan 17, 2024 06:29
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I weaned myself off of ESXi once I realized that one of my servers was mostly resource-dedicated to the VCSA server for that cluster. Actually should move to proxmox but I just kind of went back to baremetal + containers for all the things that had discrete VMs previously, mostly out of expediency and "eh I'll get around to proxmox at some point". I think maybe that was the time I was also messing with Xen or something. I've been slacking bigtime on the homelab front since I went all-in on simmimg IBM mainframes and learning MVS/zOS 
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Jan 17, 2024 14:23
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I'm still using XCP-NG (Open Source Xenserver) but slowly moving to Proxmox
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Jan 17, 2024 15:28
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CommieGIR posted:I'm still using XCP-NG (Open Source Xenserver) but slowly moving to Proxmox In doing some googling around that seems to be the other choice. Why are you switching/choosing one over the other?
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Jan 17, 2024 15:38
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Motronic posted:In doing some googling around that seems to be the other choice. Why are you switching/choosing one over the other? Mostly just to trying it out - XCP-NG works just fine, and I still prefer it.
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Jan 17, 2024 16:14
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CommieGIR posted:Mostly just to trying it out - XCP-NG works just fine, and I still prefer it. Dammit, now that means I have two things to try out.
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Jan 17, 2024 16:27
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Lawrence systems did a few videos on xcp-ng and it looks pretty neat, I ended up using Proxmox because it could handle reliably passing through a USB thumbdrive to an unraid VM, which was a small but specific edge case I think. His biggest reason for favoring XCP-NG were the backup and backup testing workflow, and Proxmox's lack of 24/7 support plan for actual business use.
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Jan 17, 2024 21:29
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Is there a preference between xcp-ng vs proxmox for setting up, among a million other things, a truenas scale VM and passing through a sata controller to it?
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Jan 18, 2024 07:23
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Twerk from Home posted:https://twitter.com/sysadafterdark/status/1747114461146620102 Who could have possibly seen this coming? Now they can all start adopting something Open Source like xcp-ng or proxmox? eschaton fucked around with this message at 09:20 on Jan 18, 2024 |
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Jan 18, 2024 09:17
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some kinda jackal posted:I've been slacking bigtime on the homelab front since I went all-in on simmimg IBM mainframes and learning MVS/zOS z/OS homelab when?
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Jan 18, 2024 09:18
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eschaton posted:z/OS homelab when? code:some kinda jackal fucked around with this message at 13:15 on Jan 18, 2024 |
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Jan 18, 2024 13:04
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Korean Boomhauer posted:Is there a preference between xcp-ng vs proxmox for setting up, among a million other things, a truenas scale VM and passing through a sata controller to it? Especially if you've already moved to Scale and left BSD behind, I might at least consider using Proxmox's ZFS support. Proxmox aims to be your storage as well, has support for ZFS and Ceph.
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Jan 18, 2024 14:04
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eschaton posted:Who could have possibly seen this coming? This seems like a terrible idea. Forcing homelabbers away from ESXi is only going to drive nerds into open source virtualization and those same nerds are going to bring that new familiarity into the workplace. I can see it unfolding in SMB shops now: “Actually boss, I’ve used [open source version] a lot and there’s no need to go with VMware. Let me set up a POC and show you how this works.” I wonder what problem the dropping of free ESXi is trying to solve.
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Jan 18, 2024 14:35
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Agrikk posted:I wonder what problem the dropping of free ESXi is trying to solve. Providing an extra reason to completely kill VMWare when there are no more customers. Until then, they'll milk it for all they can, to recoup the money paid for it and maybe turn a bit of profit. Which they will, as I'm presuming they did their calculations properly. And it is possible that probably there were small businesses out there using that free edition, which will maybe be forced to pay now if they can't move off of it soon enough. Since they bought it the stock rose a few hundred $ too, so the people at Broadcom got their nice bonuses anyway, so it's a win for them anyway. For me personally this sucks donkey balls since I moved from proxmox to the free ESXi a year ago, and I've been really happy with it as it is faster overall than proxmox. I hope, if I don't upgrade it or anything, they'll let me have it for some time. Volguus fucked around with this message at 14:54 on Jan 18, 2024 |
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Jan 18, 2024 14:50
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Agrikk posted:This seems like a terrible idea. Forcing homelabbers away from ESXi is only going to drive nerds into open source virtualization and those same nerds are going to bring that new familiarity into the workplace. Yup. Its just going to make subject matter experts stop recommending ESXi and move them to other platforms. Broadcom just cannot stop with the IBM/GE levels of MBA driving fuckups.
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Jan 18, 2024 15:08
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Volguus posted:For me personally this sucks donkey balls since I moved from proxmox to the free ESXi a year ago, and I've been really happy with it as it is faster overall than proxmox. I hope, if I don't upgrade it or anything, they'll let me have it for some time. What's faster about ESXi? VM execution speed? Control plane? Networking? Paravirtual drivers? I haven't looked into benchmarks but I'd be surprised if qemu/KVM was way slower than VMware for running VMs given the resources and large stakeholders backing it.
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Jan 18, 2024 16:13
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Some of the VMs I have run builds of some of my projects. The builds finish faster now by more than 20-30%. That's measured numbers. Not measured is VM responsiveness when I ssh into one and do ... whatever. The downloads VM also downloads things faster now. It uses more of the available bandwidth.
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Jan 18, 2024 16:33
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It could be QEMU’s default CPU type, which is set to essentially the baseline x86_64 instruction set to ensure maximum compatibility for live migrations. I know ESXi has a similar setting, but I don’t recall what it defaults to. My guess is it targets a newer instruction set that aligns with the oldest processors on the ESXi HCL. You can (and should) change that for all VMs that you run. Usually “host” is advisable if your cluster is on the same CPU microarchitecture. Cenodoxus fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Jan 18, 2024 |
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Jan 18, 2024 16:49
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Cenodoxus posted:It could be QEMU’s default CPU type, which is set to essentially the baseline x86_64 instruction set to ensure maximum compatibility for live migrations. I know ESXi has a similar setting, but I don’t recall what it defaults to. My guess is it targets a newer instruction set that aligns with the oldest processors on the ESXi HCL. Oh yes, I poked in there changing anything that I could/read about proxmox performance. I ran it for several years (more than 4). Until I got sick and tired of janitoring that junk and moved to esxi, which ... whatever it does I do not care, the VMs are faster now. Which is the only thing that matters.
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Jan 19, 2024 00:35
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I'd like to set up a small homelab to muck about with learning containers, k8s, Intune + Autopilot etc... Is there any guidance on finding cheap workstations for these kind of projects?
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Jan 20, 2024 17:13
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Hughmoris posted:I'd like to set up a small homelab to muck about with learning containers, k8s, Intune + Autopilot etc... A lot of it is going to depend where you're putting it. Like you can hit ebay for a poweredge from some number of years ago for $300. But it'll slurp power like a camel at an oasis and be louder than a 737 Max missing it's door plug. I usually just whitebox things together myself from newegg parts but I also have my now 11 year old NAS box running on original hardware.
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Jan 20, 2024 18:06
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Hughmoris posted:I'd like to set up a small homelab to muck about with learning containers, k8s, Intune + Autopilot etc... You can find some pretty good deals on the ultra-small form factor workstations from Dell, HP and Lenovo. ServeTheHome has a good article series on it called TinyMiniMicro. Buy a few of those, max them out with RAM and put an NVMe and a SATA SSD in each and you can build a solid Proxmox cluster that idles around 10W per node. Some OptiPlex Micros also have a slot you can install a second 1GB NIC in using the WiFi M.2 slot.
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Jan 20, 2024 18:13
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Twerk from Home posted:Especially if you've already moved to Scale and left BSD behind, I might at least consider using Proxmox's ZFS support. I actually started on scale. I'm not picky about which flavor of truenas i run though. That's neat that Proxmox has ZFS support. Can I do SMB/NFS with it? I mostly just need a big blob of storage for personal files or whatever.
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Jan 20, 2024 19:12
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Korean Boomhauer posted:That's neat that Proxmox has ZFS support. Can I do SMB/NFS with it? I mostly just need a big blob of storage for personal files or whatever. Proxmox is strictly a hypervisor, so all of its ZFS and Ceph management is focused on that. There's nothing in the UI to manage any SMB shares or NFS exports. It's just Debian under the hood, so you could if you had to and didn't mind managing all the config by hand. Scale does VMs and (Docker) containers by itself so I don't think there's a compelling case for putting Proxmox underneath it unless you have some other requirements. some kinda jackal posted:
gently caress yeah. You just inspired me to fire up Hercules again. Dammit.
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Jan 20, 2024 20:15
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Cenodoxus posted:You can find some pretty good deals on the ultra-small form factor workstations from Dell, HP and Lenovo. ServeTheHome has a good article series on it called TinyMiniMicro. 2nding this - The Micro Form Factor Dell/HP/Lenovo can pack a lot in there, I have one with a socketed i7 10 core/20 thread and 64GB of RAM + 2 nvme and a 2.5" SATA. A nice little powerhouse
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Jan 20, 2024 20:33
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Cenodoxus posted:gently caress yeah. You just inspired me to fire up Hercules again. Dammit. Condolences 
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Jan 21, 2024 03:12
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Hughlander posted:A lot of it is going to depend where you're putting it. Cenodoxus posted:You can find some pretty good deals on the ultra-small form factor workstations from Dell, HP and Lenovo. ServeTheHome has a good article series on it called TinyMiniMicro. Ok thanks for the ideas. I'm looking more towards a couple of mini PCs that I can stick in the corner of my office and remote to. Amazon sells mini PCs by a vendor called Bee-link. You can get a 12th gen Intel processor for $139. Hmmm.
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Jan 21, 2024 21:22
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Hughmoris posted:Amazon sells mini PCs by a vendor called Bee-link. You can get a 12th gen Intel processor for $139. Hmmm. I have 2 Beelinks and they're a mixed bag. They are fine but you can tell that they're cheap. The best value Beelink right now if you want a little more grunt are the 8 core AMD ones for ~$280, they're a hell of a lot faster than those cheapo Intel ones. I have a N5095 and N5105, and the problems I've run into are:
Oh, and one last thing: they all ship with only 1 DIMM but this isn't a big deal on the model you posted because Intel processors are such garbage that they only support single channel memory. I put a 32GB kit into my older, dual channel N5015 and it gets 40fps in Fortnite.
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Jan 21, 2024 21:35
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All of this talk is making me consider using mini-PCs for my hypervisors but I need a PCIe slot for a fiber HBA. Is there such a thing? What’s the smallest mini PC available with a PCIe slot?
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Jan 21, 2024 22:07
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Agrikk posted:All of this talk is making me consider using mini-PCs for my hypervisors but I need a PCIe slot for a fiber HBA. People can and do use M.2 to full size PCIe adapters to do all sorts of stuff. https://www.amazon.com/ADT-Link-Extender-Graphics-Adapter-PCI-Express/dp/B07YDH8KW9
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Jan 21, 2024 22:15
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im this reviewers setup they say the use-case was to run 4 GPUs at once so it's a crime they didn't show the fully populated system
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Jan 21, 2024 23:03
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Agrikk posted:All of this talk is making me consider using mini-PCs for my hypervisors but I need a PCIe slot for a fiber HBA. Yes, there is, the Lenovo M720q has a PCIe slot available: https://www.servethehome.com/lenovo-thinkcentre-m720q-tinyminimicro-feature/
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Jan 21, 2024 23:44
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If its a half height card, theres the minisforum ms-01. Its got a 13900h, 2 dimms, 3 nvme, 1 u.2 (disables 1 nvme if used), and a half height single slot pcie
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Jan 22, 2024 14:45
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Recently, I had a breathtaking journey to the enterprise-level storage microservers world. Here is a short shot of how it went. Enjoy! Admin Edit: Removed spam youtube link
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Jan 28, 2024 11:51
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CommieGIR posted:2nding this - The Micro Form Factor Dell/HP/Lenovo can pack a lot in there, I have one with a socketed i7 10 core/20 thread and 64GB of RAM + 2 nvme and a 2.5" SATA. A nice little powerhouse Yeah, I've been very happy with my optiplex micro. You can get a decent little pc with quicksync support for under $200 if you're willing to grab used. I recommended a NUC, optiplex, or other x86 micro pc to my father, who's looking to get back into some modest homelabbing after having to chuck all of his stuff for a move. A little device like that with proxmox on it and a NAS to backup your VM states make for a great basic homelab setup for under $600 (before hard drive costs)
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Jan 28, 2024 14:19
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Nitrousoxide posted:Yeah, I've been very happy with my optiplex micro. You can get a decent little pc with quicksync support for under $200 if you're willing to grab used. I recommended a NUC, optiplex, or other x86 micro pc to my father, who's looking to get back into some modest homelabbing after having to chuck all of his stuff for a move. A little device like that with proxmox on it and a NAS to backup your VM states make for a great basic homelab setup for under $600 (before hard drive costs) Dell Refurbished also has occasional sales where they give 40-50% off, which puts their refurbs in a comparable price range to used. My homelab stuff (Plex, Minecraft server for the kids, PFsense, etc) runs on a couple SFF PCs like that.
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Jan 28, 2024 17:53
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It's been a while since I physically mucked with enterprise class servers as opposed to just configuring them with Dell and drop shipping them where they need to go. On an R440 (dual socket but only one socket occupied by a Xeon), what's the maximum memory slots I can actually use with a single CPU? I *think* they are all technically usable I will just be crossing an interconnect/different NUMA nodes? Also learned the hard way that an R740 is entirely too loud for a homelab unless I am missing some trick to get the thing quieter (set power profile to both sound capped and energy efficient but still a loud sumbitch) cr0y fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Jan 28, 2024 |
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Jan 28, 2024 22:07
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cr0y posted:
Filling out all the internal fans reduced the overall volume a little for me, but not enough to the point I'd want to be in the same room with it. I relegated mine to my works office where it's doing lab duties.
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Jan 28, 2024 22:28
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Aware posted:Filling out all the internal fans reduced the overall volume a little for me, but not enough to the point I'd want to be in the same room with it. I relegated mine to my works office where it's doing lab duties. Whelp 
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Jan 28, 2024 22:39
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