Working at VMware provides many fantastic possibilities. One of it is a possibility to use vCloud Director based environment where you can spin up any lab you want (of course with per-user limits 😉 ). This environment has some limits and I decided to purchase new Home Lab.
After long considerations, I decided to buy well known in VMware community Supermicro E300-8D. It has amazing hardware combined with very small chassis.
Main components:
| CPU | Intel Xeon D-1518 2,2Ghz |
| Cores/Threads | 4 Cores / 8 Threads |
| Memory | 128 GB (4x 32GB) 2133Mhz DDR4 ECC RDIMM |
| Network | 6x 1Gbe (RJ45) + 2x 10Gb (SFP+) |
| Disks | 4x SATA3 1x M.2 – M key 2242/2280/22110 – PCI-E 3.0 x4 1x mSATA (Mini PCI-E) – PCI-E 2.0 x1 |
| Peripheral | 2x USB 3.0 |
| Expansion | 2x PCI-E 3.0 x8 |
| SATADOM | 2x Satadom |
| VGA | 1x VGA |
| IPMI | Yes |
| Form factor | Mini-1U |
| I’ve decided that for maximum performance I will use all-flash vSAN. Below you will find the list of components I used in my setup: |
- RAM - 4 x 32GB Samsung DDR4-2133 regECC DIMM CL15
- ESXi local storage - 32GB Delock SATADOM Module SATA 6Gb/ MLC
- vSAN:
- Flash Tier - WD Black 256GB SSD M.2 PCI-Express
- Capacity Tier - Crucial MX300 2TB SATA
At the moment I am not using any managed switches (I plan to do so in the nearest future) and my lab will be entirely nested. I am in a process of building the environment and after some time I will share my thoughts how this server suits for the home lab.
I certainly recommend to read more about the Supermicro server:
- https://michaelryom.dk/nuc-killer-supermicro-superserver-e300-8d/- this is fantastic article comparing Supermicro Server and Intel NUCs
- https://michaelryom.dk/part-2-supermicro-superserver-e300-8d-deep-dive/- detailed overview of the Supermicro Server
- https://tinkertry.com/compare - I think most comprehensive source of knowledge about Supermicro Servers