How does this look for a multi use server?

[Lean L]

I now have a spare machine that I plan on turning into a multi use server to be hosted at my house. I am open to all suggestions.

Hardware:

AMD x6 1045t
8GB RAM
1Gb Ethernet to router
3TB combined space

Software (All on ESXi)

Dedicated NAS on Gentoo (All other servers will use this for storage drive via virtualhub) - 1 core, 512MB
Windows Home Server - 3 cores, 3GB
Apache / development on CentOS - 2 cores, 1GB
Game Server on ?? - 2 cores, 2GB
Another test linux environment on Gentoo - 1 core, 512MB

Questions are:

How does ESXi handle processor distribution when more vcores are assigned than there are physical?
How much memory overhead can I expect from ESXi? I don't want to shell out $130 for 16GB memory.
What OS should I use for the game host server? I want a light weight linux distro that is low maintenance and is hard to break.

Are there any more suggestions? Perhaps a suggested use for a server?

 

[Bootleg Betty]

The system would be starved of IO. You don't list the disk configuration, but assuming they are 1 TB 7200 RPM drives, that's not enough IO for one or two machines, and especially not for five, where four of them run through 1 core 512 MB RAM NAS.

Normally, the systems can use RAM to make up for a bit of slow IO, and Linux us pretty good at it, but with 512 MB on some of the machines, this won't work.

You would be better of with dropping the NAS and using storage directly in the ESXi. I know it kind of sucks from the data safety perspective, but 3 disks in RAID used to provision virtual volumes to machines are going to be much slower than giving the important machines (like the windows server I assume you'd be using for sharing) it's own disk it won't share with others.

 

[Lean L]

All the machines will have it's own virtual parition. The NAS is used to share data between them.

 

[yinan]

Spend the $130 for the RAM. The more RAM for VMs the better.

 

[SecurityTheatre]

Realistically, if those servers are sitting idle for 90% of the day, the RAM, nor the disk will be an issue.

ESX is very good at settling down and caching unused RAM away and after a server sits mostly idle for a few hours, it will be using about 1/4 as much RAM is it normally would.

On the other hand, if the servers is highly utilized, you might be starving them of RAM, which will cause the disk to thrash, which will absolutely hammer your performance.

It's all about how much use it's going to get. Sizing a server without a usage estimate is a poor approach.

Offhand, ESX uses about 500MB of RAM.

 

[mfenn]

Realistically, if those servers are sitting idle for 90% of the day, the RAM, nor the disk will be an issue.

ESX is very good at settling down and caching unused RAM away and after a server sits mostly idle for a few hours, it will be using about 1/4 as much RAM is it normally would.

On the other hand, if the servers is highly utilized, you might be starving them of RAM, which will cause the disk to thrash, which will absolutely hammer your performance.

It's all about how much use it's going to get. Sizing a server without a usage estimate is a poor approach.

Offhand, ESX uses about 500MB of RAM.

:thumbsup:

How does ESXi handle processor distribution when more vcores are assigned than there are physical?

The number of cores assigned to a VM only determines the maximum number of physical cores that that VM can use. If the VM is doing nothing, then the core will be available to other cores. If there are more active virtual cores than physical cores, then the physical CPU time will be split amongst the VMs, similar to how processes share CPU time on an normal OS.

Given the workload you described, CPU utilization is not going to be a problem. You'll run out of memory and disk IOPS before you max out the CPUs.

 

[Lean L]

Update:

I ended up getting a new motherboard since it was cheaper to upgrade the memory that way. The ESXi machine now has 16GB of memory. I will look into getting a dual intel nic so I can also run it as an advanced gateway.

With the remaining motherboard, I bought a new amd sempron 145, new case and matched them up with some old parts I had lying around. I will give this machine to a relative. It is hilarious to me for some reason seeing that machine boot up every time. I unlocked the core and overclocked the processor... Such a cheap processor running at 3.2GHZ with windows 7... I don't know why that's funny to me.. maybe since it was the cheapest processor I could find.

 

[mfenn]

That's awesome. Those Semprons were champs.

 

[Lean L]

Yeah it clocks high easily and unlocked without a hitch. These semprons probably exist to fit the lower market segment. I can't see tsmc producing enough bad chips to be able to produce a whole line of 145s.

Any other ideas for cool VM projects? Now I have enough processor and ram to support everything I listed and then some more. Is vcenter not free?

 

[mfenn]

vCenter is most certainly not free. You can get an "Essentials" kit for ~$450, but it is really gimped, not even allowing vMotion. The next step up is ~$4000 if memory serves.