Generation 8 HOME LAB Bill of Materials

Last Updated 02/02/2024

Overview:

Below is the BOM for my Gen 8 Home Lab, Gen 8 Workstation and a Archive section for my older home labs. My current Gen 8 Home lab is based on 3 x vSphere 8 (VCSA, ESXi, and vSAN ESA) hosts and the Gen 8 Workstation is one Windows 11 PC based on VMWare Workstation 17. The overall plan for my home lab is to use it for vSphere Nesting and Testing. Read further below for an itemized list.

Why Generation 8? To track my home labs I call them Generation plus a number. Initially, that number would be incremented when I did a hardware refresh but as of Generation 7 I aligned this number to the version of vSphere.

NOTE:

• My Gen 8 Home Lab is still under development and I’m still confirming compatibility. Right now ESXi 8 installs well but I have not tested any other software or features beyond that.
• My Gen 8 VMware Workstation lab is completed and there are multiple videos below around this.

Gen 8 Home Lab – VMware ESXi Hosts, Storage, and Networking

ESXi Hosts: (Most products were used and from eBay)

• Primary Host:
  • Barebones Dell Precision 7820 Tower Workstation with U.2 Backplane
  • Included:
    • Video Card Nvidia Quadro 600
    • Stock Cooler/Heatsink
    • 4 Disk Trays
• CPU:
  • 1 x Xeon Gold 6252 ES 24 Cores / 48 HT (ES means Engineering Samples)
• RAM:
  • 256GB DDR4 ECC RAM
    • 4 x 64GB Samsung M393A8G40MB2 – CVFBY
• Disks:
  • 1 x Intel SSD DC S3710 400GB ESXi Boot Disk (Connected via SATA Disk tray)
  • 1 x Intel SSD D3-S4510 3.84TB ESXi Extra Local Disk (Connected via SATA Disk tray)
  • 2 x HPE Intel Optane SSD PC P4800x 750GB (Connected via U.2 Disk tray)
  • 2 x HPE Intel Optane SSD PC P4800x 1.5TB (Connected via the U.2 PCIe Adapter)
  • 2 x U.2 to PCIe Adapter Startech
• Network:
  • 1 x Onboard Intel NIC 1 port 1gbe
  • 1 x Broadcom BCM 5719 4 Port 1gbe
  • 1 x QLogic QL45212HLCU-DE 2 Port 25Gbe << Recommend buy new, lots of bad ones on eBay.

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 PRO
  • 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 used on the MikoTik Switches
  • 2  per host: HP 684517-001 Twinax SFP 10Gb 0.5m DAC Cable (Ebay)

Battery Backup UPS:

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

Gen 8 – VMware Workstation

BOM:

• OS: Windows 11 Pro for Workstation
• VMware: VMware Workstation 17 PRO
• Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro series PH-ES614PC_BK Black Steel
• Mobo: ASRack Rock EPC621D8A
• CPU: Xeon Gold ES 6252 (ES means Engineering Samples)
• Cooler: Noctua NH-D9 DX-3647 4U
• RAM: 384GB (2933Mhz 2Rx4 ECC 6 x 64GB RAM)
• NVMe: 2 x Sabrent 2TB ROCKET NVMe PCIe
• Intel U.2 Optane: 3 x HPE Optane X4800P 1.5TB
• Adapter: 3 x PCIe SSD U.2 Adapter
• HDD: 63TB 5 x Seagate IronWolf Pro 18TB
• SATA Cable: SATA 6G Data Cable
• Video Card: GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER
• 10Gbe NIC: ASUS XG-C100C 10G Network Adapter
• BluRay Drive: LG Blu-ray Disc Rewriter
• UPS: APC Back-UPS PRO BN1500M2

Check out my playlist on how to build a Nested vSAN ESA from start to finish.

ARCHIVE: Previous Home Lab Information

Home Lab Gen 7: (09/2020-02/2023)

• Home Lab Generation 7: Archive Page
• Home Lab Generation 7: Updating from Gen 5 to Gen 7
• Home Lab Generation 7: Upgrading vSAN 7 Hybrid capacity step by step
• Home Lab Generation 7: Part 1 – Change Rational for software and hardware changes
• Home Lab Generation 7: Updating the Dell HBA330 firmware with No Dell Server
• Home Lab Generation 7: Part 2 – New Hardware and Software Updates
• Home Lab Generation 7: Upgrading and Replacing a vSAN 7 Cache Disk
• Home Lab Generation 7: Migration to ALL Flash vSAN

Home Lab Gen 5: (01/2020 – 09/2020)

• Home Lab GEN V: VIDEO The Quest for More Cores! – First Look
• Home Lab GEN V: BLOG The Quest for More Cores! Design Considerations
• Home Lab GEN V Build: Part 1 – VIDEO Build Components Overview
• Home Lab GEN V Build: Part 2 – VIDEO Case Selection
• Home Lab Gen V Build: Part 3 – VIDEO Motherboard Overview
• Home Lab Gen V Build: Part 4 – VIDEO First Install Steps
• Home Lab Gen V Build: Part 5 – VIDEO Motherboard Install
• Home Lab Gen V Build: Part 6 – VIDEO Final Steps
• Home Lab Gen V Build: Part 7 – VIDEO: Wrap up, Outcomes, and Design Changes

Home Lab Gen 4: (10/2016 – 2019)

• Home Lab Gen IV – Part I: To InfiniBand and beyond!
• Home Lab Gen IV – Part II: Design Considerations
• Home Lab Gen IV – Part III: Best ESXi White box Mobo yet?
• Home Lab Gen IV – Part IV: Overcoming installation challenges
• Home Lab Gen IV – Part V Installing Mellanox HCAs with ESXi 6.5
• Gigabyte Firmware / BIOS update for MergePoint Embedded Management Software and Motherboard