Hardware advice for Workstation

[AdamRushUK]

Hi

I'm new to the community and have searched for this already but haven't found the info I require, so apologies if this is a common question.

I'm about to build a new PC to run Workstation on. I will use it to run nested ESXi/Hyper-V hosts, and plenty of lab stuff for VMware View labs etc.

I currently have several old PCs/servers, but would like to only turn on one PC for my labs, as my tiny home office gets so hot.

Is it worth waiting for the new Ivy Bridge CPUs to come out - any day now - or will a current i7 be fine, if so, what's the best i7 and chipset to use?

I already read Sammy's excellent post (http://boerlowie.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/building-the-ultimate-vsphere-lab-part-2-the-hardware/) but I want 32GB RAM minimum really given that I will be hammering it with lots of VMs at one point or another.

I already have a few SSDs and larger SATA HDDs ready, but was wondering if there is a HCL or similar for running nested ESXi/Hpyer-V hosts?

Does anybody have any other recommendations?

[a_p_]

I use an I7-2600 with 16GB RAM and an SSD drive on which I created the LUNs for the MS iSCSI target. This configuration runs great, except the memory fills up very fast. I don't see any performance issues with the CPU at all.

Regarding a HCL, there's not much you can do wrong as VMware Workstation just leverages the host OS resources.

André

PS: Discussion moved from VMware Workstation to Nested Virtualization

[AdamRushUK]

Thanks for the quick response André.

So I can't really go wrong when choosing hardware then?

Is that the i7-2600K or i7-2600S?

Is Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) important?

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

So I can't really go wrong when choosing hardware then?

Nothing I could think of. If the hardware is supported by the OS, VMware Workstation should work fine.

Is that the i7-2600K or i7-2600S?

It's an i7-2600 3.40GHz CPU (no "S" and no "K"). I currently have a Windows 2008R2 DC and vCenter Server (including iSCSI target) and two ESXi 5.0U1 hosts powered on in VMware Workstation and the CPU is almost idle. (No nested VM's powered on).

Is Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) important?

No, what matters is that "VT-x" and "Execute Disable Bit" are both enabled in the BIOS and that the processor supports EPT.

André

[AdamRushUK]

Excellent, it looks like I can choose any i7 CPU then, cheers André