This Page contains two sections:
- Section 1: HOME LABS: A DEFINITIVE GUIDE << Links to my slides and videos
- Section 2: My Home Lab build-of-materials (BOM) << Information around my current Home lab
Section 1: HOME LABS: A DEFINITIVE GUIDE
The HOME LABS: A DEFINITIVE GUIDE has been presented to various groups. Below are links to my slides and videos. During these sessions I go into detail around Home lab design considerations, which is something we usually don’t think of when building a home lab. I do hope you find this information very useful. Please feel free to ask any questions or post comments… Thanks — Enjoy!
Note – If you want me to present this guide to your group, do reach out always happy to help.
JUNE-2022 vExpert Session – Home Labs Definitive Guide
MAY-2021 VMUG Advantage Session – Home Labs Definitive Guide
AUG-2020 VMUG Advantage Session – Home Labs Definitive Guide
MAY-2020 Cedar Park VMUG Session – Home Labs Definitive Guide
MAR-2020 TAM Lab Recorded Session
Section 2: CURRNT HOME LAB BOM (Updated 05/2022)
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.NEXT. Chances are I’ll carry over some of the components for my vSphere.NEXT design.
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.NEXT 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.NEXT)
- 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
- 256GB DDR3 ECC RAM (Mostly from Ebay | each host has a different brand)
- 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 512 (Amazon $199)
- 1 x 2TB SATA | Extra Space | Hitachi (Ebay $50)
- 1 x Dual M.2 PCIe Adapter Card for NVMe/SATA SSD (Amazon $15)
- 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)
- Antec Earthwatts 500-700 Watts (Adapters needed to support case and motherboard connections)
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
- 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
Window 10 Workstation:
- VMware Workstation PRO 16
- Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro series PH-ES614PC_BK Black Steel
- Motherboard: MSI PRO Z390-A PRO
- CPU: Intel Core i7-8700
- RAM: 64GB DDR4 RAM
- 1TB NVMe
April 12, 2016 at 11:47 pm
Hello, I’m curious, what sort of VM performance do you get with iSCSI and your FreeNAS server with ESXi
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April 15, 2016 at 10:31 am
I am no longer using FreeNAS as its over all performance was weak, I found the communities support unpleasant, and finally the over all product at the time I used it was quite buggy. I spent more time getting it to run vs. using it. Granted my choice of FreeNAS hardware wasn’t perfect but I used what I had. In the end I migrated my FreeNAS box to VMWare VSAN and I could not have been happier — https://vmexplorer.com/2014/08/18/vsan-the-migration-from-freenas-2/
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February 26, 2021 at 10:23 pm
looking to build a remote gaming machine and passthrough your GPU to a virtual machine. Can this be done in a HomeLab with VMWare or am I in-over-my-head? Great presentation. I also watch all your build vids on YouTube.
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February 27, 2021 at 5:29 pm
Hey Darrell, thanks for the comment and support. I have not tried nor have I looked into something like that. It’s been on my mind a bit but right now I’ve been doing a lot with NSX and vRNI. If I were to do something like this, I guess would start by reading the ESXi documentation and looking for blogs where folks have done this. Check out this blogger, he’s been doing home labs and GPUs too — https://tinkertry.com/vmware-vsphere-esxi-7-gpu-passthrough-ui-bug-workaround Hope this helps! Reach out anytime!
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February 28, 2022 at 4:08 pm
I used your list to purchase (2) DEEPCOOL GAMMAXX 400 which does not fit the Supermicro X9DRD-7LN4F-JBOD.
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February 28, 2022 at 4:40 pm
@Jeff – Thank you for your comment. For some reason the CPU Cooler adapter plate I used on the X9DRD-7LN4F-JBOD that allowed the GAMMAX400 cooler to mount wasn’t listed on my Home Lab Guide parts list. Here is the part I used >> https://www.ebay.com/itm/123822787976 I will add this today.
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