Windows 2008 Server on VMWare (hardware)

Posted by Bill on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by Bill
Published on 2011-02-08T17:20:42Z Indexed on 2011/03/11 8:12 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 221

Filed under:

vmware-esxi

|

hardware-selection

I want to setup a single server to run a few virtual servers for our datacenter. I do not have a lot of money to spend so I am trying to gain bang for the buck. My budget is around $2,000.

So I was thinking about building the following as the VMWare physical server:

Intel iCore 7 950 (LGA1366, 4 cores,8 threads)
Gigabyte GA-X58-USB3 LGA 1366 X58 ATX Intel Motherboard
24 GB of Viper II Series, Sector 7 Edition, Extreme Performance DDR3-1600 (PC3-12800) CL9 Triple Channel Memory
VelociRaptor 300GB 10,000 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

I am planning on running the newest version of VMWare ESXi (64-bit).

On these I am planning on running a few various servers:

Windows 2008 Server R2 w/ IIS (several custom built ASP.NET Apps)
Windows 2008 Server R2 w/ MS SQL 2008 Database Server
Linux Web Server w/ Several WordPress Blogs (XAMPP?)
Windows 2008 Server R2 w/ IIS (DEV ENVIRONMENT)
Windows 2008 Server R2 w/ MS SQL 2008 Database Server (DEV ENVIRONMENT)

In your opinion, will this hardware be sufficient to run the above load with room for possible 2-3 more virtual machines (probably lightweight web servers)?

© Server Fault or respective owner

Related posts about vmware-esxi

VMWare ESXi, change the default path for a VM

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
For some reason VMWare ESXi has decided that one of my VMs is on a completely different path to the path it is actually on. So my VM is on /vmfs/volumes/long-guid-here/my-vm-name but when I try to open it I get the message "File < unspecified filename was not found." Which is not really surprising… >>> More
VMWare ESXi 3.5 Wake On Lan

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Hello everyone! I am using VMWare ESXi 3.5 on my server, and I want to be able to remotely boot the server up. In the bios settings of the computer, I enabled Wake on Lan. I know usually with Windows XP and other Windows Operating Systems, you have to also enable wake on lan in the network card settings… >>> More
blu-ray archiving in vmware ESXi 4

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Hi, I need some advice about using blu-ray writer for archiving data on vmware ESXi 4. At office we have IBM System x3400 Tower server with ESXi 4 hipervisor and OpenSuse and CentOS GNU/Linux system as guests. Will blu-ray writer work in this setup, and if it will is there any particular model you… >>> More
I need to get VMWare Server running inside of a VMWare ESXi virtual machine

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Yes, I know running a virtual machine inside of a virtual machine is a bad idea. Yes, I know it will be very slow. However, our production system required VMs in VMWare server and I do not want to setup a real server for each of our developers for testing. I would like to be able to setup all of… >>> More
Eject disk on Mac Pro running VMWare ESXi

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I'm almost embarrassed to ask this, but I'm stuck. I installed VMWare ESXi on a Mac Pro. It's working great! The problem is that you press F12 to eject the disk, and F12 is what you use to shutdown ESX. I can power down, open the case, pull out the CD drive and use a paper clip to force the drawer… >>> More

Related posts about hardware-selection

Hardware selection for Linux machine

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Hi, I am building a new box, and planning to install Ubuntu 9-04 or Ubuntu 9-10 on it. I am wary of the hardware selection because in the past I struggled with lack of drivers or driver incompatibility with the network card and video card, etc. The last time I built a Linux box was 2007, and I have… >>> More
Small web server hardware advice

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
We need to build a new web server for our organization. We have around 100 hundred small traffic web sites, so our hardware requirements are not too tough. We run CentOS 6, Varnish+Apache, PHP, MySQL, Typo3 CMS for most of websites. Here's a hardware we want to buy: SuperMicro X9SCA-F-O (we need… >>> More
How to make booting faster?

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
What should be done to make booting faster? Answer in terms of RAM, OS, etc. >>> More
How to make booting faster?

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
What should be done to make booting faster? Answer in terms of RAM, OS, etc. >>> More
Xeon X5550 vs Six-core Opteron for database server

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I'm specing out a database server, and the price works out to be reasonably close between an Intel X5550 Quad-core and an AMD 2425HE (2.1Ghz) Six-core Opteron. I've been looking for some comparisons between the two, but the only thing useful I've found is an AnandTech Review of the 2435 which compares… >>> More