Hi All,
I am seeking some advice on a new server build to be used in my home lab. The server will be designed to serve my home network using CIFS as well as NAS storage to run as an ESXi NFS store for virtual machines. I will use this server for study and have no problems spending the money (within reason) as long as the server performs quickly. I would like to be able to run 20 or more VM’s which will have little activity but respond quickly when installing software, cloning, snapshots, backing up etc. Hardware wise I am looking at:
- Supermicro X9DRH-ITF Motherboard (primarily for 10GB)
- Intel Xeon E5-2620
- 32GB RAM
The server will have space for about 18 drives so I am also looking for recommendations for appropriate RAID cards.
Can someone please offer some advice on SSD configuration for cache, logs etc. to work with 9 X 4TB 7200’s drives and any indication as to what sort of performance I can expect. I understand mirroring is fastest but that simply becomes too cost prohibitive. I am yet to decide whether dedup is something I should consider, given how cheap disks are I don’t know if it is worthwhile.
Thank you,
Adam