vmexplorer

Home Lab Generation 7: Archive Page

Posted on February 28, 2023 Updated on March 2, 2023

Today I’m retiring my Generation 7 Home lab as my Generation 8 lab will be posted in my Home Lab BOM section very soon. My Gen 7 Home Lab was a vSphere and vSAN 7 All Flash cluster and below was its final configuration. Some of the items below I’ll be reusing in Generation 8, and some of the items I will be selling off.

Overview:

My Gen 7 Home Lab is based on vSphere 7 (VCSA, ESXi, and vSAN), NSX-T, and vRealize Suite. Additionally, I use it for vSphere Nesting and Testing. It contains 3 x ESXi Hosts, 1 x Windows 10 Workstation,  4 x Cisco Switches, 2 x MikroTik 10gbe Switch, 3 x APC UPS, 1 x Synology 1621+, and 1 x Asustor Lockerstor 10.  Read further below for an itemized list.

NOTE: My Home Lab Generation 7 design will not fully work with vSphere 8.  Though I could force the install of vSphere 8 I have decided to upgrade my home lab. Please see my Home Lab BOM for more inforamtion.

ESXi Hosts: (Total cost for one host ~$1325 | Unless noted, the items this area are per host)

NOTE: This Home Lab Generation 7 has worked well for me with vSphere 7 BUT most likely it will need to be updated for vSphere 8 due to pCPU discontinuation. Please see this KB for further information https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/82794

• Case:
  • Rosewill RISE Glow EATX (Newegg $54)
• Motherboard:
  • Supermicro X9DRD-7LN4F-JBOD (Ebay $159)
  • Mobo Stands: 4mm Nylon Plastic Pillar (Amazon $8)
• CPU: (These CPUs work on vSphere 7, but chances are they will NOT work with vSphere 8)
  • 2 x Xeon E5-2640 v2 8 Cores / 16 HT (Ebay $30 each)
• CPU Cooler or Heatsink: (Bracket required to fit narrow 2011 cooler mounts)
  • 2 x DEEPCOOL GAMMAXX 400 (Amazon $15)
  • 2 x Rectangle Socket 2011 CPU Cooler Mounting Bracket (Ebay $16 for 5)
• RAM:
  • 256GB DDR3 ECC RAM (Mostly from Ebay | each host has a different brand)
    • 16 x Host1: ELPIDA 16GB 2Rx4 PC3L-10600R-09-11-E2 Registered ECC Memory DDR3
    • 16 x Host 2: SAMSUNG M393B2K70CM0-YF8 16gb Pc3-8500r 1066mhz 1.35v Quad Rank X4 Ecc Registered Cl7 Ddr3 Sdram 240-pin Rdimm Memory Module For Server
    • 16 x Host 3: HYNIX HMT42GR7BMR4C-G7 16gb Pc3-8500r 1066mhz Cl7 Quad Rank X4 Registered Ecc Ddr3 Sdram 240-pin Rdimm Memory Module For Server
• Disks:
  • 1 x Dual M.2 PCIe Adapter Card for NVMe/SATA SSD (Amazon $15)
    • 1 x 512GB NVMe SSD | vSAN Cache | Sabrent Rocket 512 (B&H $69)
    • 1 x 240GB M.2 SSD | Boot Disk | Kingston A400 (Amazon $35)
  • 2 x Supermicro AOC-SLG3-2M2 PCIe NVMe (Amazon $55)
    • 2 x 2TB NVMe SSD | vSAN Capacity | Sabrent Rocket 2TB (Amazon $199)
  • 1 x 2TB SATA | Extra Space | Hitachi (Ebay $50)
• Network:
  • Motherboard Integrated i350 1gbe 4 Port
  • 1 x MellanoxConnectX3 Dual Port (HP INFINIBAND 4X DDR PCI-E HCA CARD 452372-001)
• Power Supply:
  • Antec Earthwatts 500-700 Watts (Adapters needed to support case and motherboard connections)
    • Adapter: Dual 8(4+4) Pin Male for Motherboard Power Adapter Cable (Amazon $11)
    • Adapter: LP4 Molex Male to ATX 4 pin Male Auxiliary (Amazon $11)
    • Power Supply Extension Cable: StarTech.com 8in 24 Pin ATX 2.01 Power Extension Cable (Amazon $9)

Storage (NAS):

• Synology 1621+(Amazon $950)
  • 2 x Synology 10Gb Ethernet Adapter 2 SFP+ Ports (E10G21-F2) (Amazon $270)
  • 4 x 1Gbe Onboard
  • 6 x 3TB SATA (Ebay $25ea)
  • 2 x Synology M.2 2280 NVMe SSD SNV3400 800GB (Amazon $280)
• Asustor Lockerstor 10
  • 2 x 10GBe Onboard
  • 2 x 2.5Gbe Onboard
  • 10 x 3TB SATA (Ebay $25ea.)
  • 2 x Crucial P1 1TB 3D NAND NVMe PCIe Internal SSD (Amazon $129)
• Asustor Drivestor 2 P
  • 1 x 2.5Gbe Onboard
  • 1 x Asus (USB-AC56) Dual-band Wireless-AC1300 USB 3.0 (Amazon $70)
  • 2 x 3TB SATA (Ebay $25ea)

Network:

• Core VM Switches:
  • 2 x Cisco 3560 (WS-C3560CG-8TC-S 8 Gigabit Ports, 2 Uplink)
  • 2 x Cisco 2960 (WS-C2960G-8TC-L)
• 10Gb Network:
  • 2 x MikoTik 10Gb CN309 (Used for vSAN, NAS devices and Replication Network)
  • 2 x DAC 1M used for 10Gbe Uplink between MikroTik Switches
  • Several FLYPROFiber 10GBase-T SFP+ to RJ45
  • 2  per host: HP 684517-001 Twinax SFP 10Gb 0.5m DAC Cable (Ebay)
  • 2 per host: MELLANOX QSFP/SFP ADAPTER 655874-B21 MAM1Q00A-QSA (Ebay)

Battery Backup UPS:

• 1 x APC NS1250
• 2 x APC Back-UPS PRO BN1500M2