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  1. #1
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    Default Anyone installed ESXi on the new HP G1610T microservers?

    I have ordered a new microserver with the view to try ESXi. I will be using a Windows Server VM immediately, not sure on the version yet.

    I have read that the B120i RAID card isn't properly supported, has anyone tried this? At the moment in my N54l I am using Drivepool to handle the redundancy rather than fake RAID, with ESXi am I better putting in a supported RAID card? I hear the HP P222 is supported but I don't know if it is worth the cost to me. The server will run databases for CRM software and accountancy software, I will have these backed up using cloud services but RAID could help prevent downtime if a disk was to fail.

    I assume I can upgrade the CPU/RAM in the future without having to reinstall?

    Cheers

    Thanks to evilsatan

    piggzy (2nd March 2015)  


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    DF VIP Member Likkle's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone installed ESXi on the new HP G1610T microservers?

    I havent got one of these microservers, so dont take anything i say as gospel lol

    Install it with a customized installer

    https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/det...&productId=353

    That will have all the drivers packaged within, ive had a look on google and the general gist was that they were using the standard hypervisor so i think youll be ok. Yeah you'll be alright with the RAM, the CPU (should) be fine if anything goes wrong you can just reinstall ESXi dead easy. All the machines will be stored as vmdk's datastore you choose (the disks in the raid) so if all goes tits you would flash the SD/USB card with ESXi again and just import the vmdk's back into the inventory. That prob will never happen anyway to be honest, but yeah its dead flexible, id deffo install ESXi onto usb/sd card storage if you can.

    Thanks to Likkle

    evilsatan (7th March 2015)  


  3. #3
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    Default Re: Anyone installed ESXi on the new HP G1610T microservers?

    I have a 40GB Intel SSD that I was going to use but it's neat how there is an internal micro SD slot so if the performance won't be affected I will use this for esxi. I got a good deal on flubit for 8GB Crucial ECC memory, will probably use 4x1TB WD Red drives in raid5 on a HP smart array controller. Gone a bit OTT but I found out that the standard storage controller isn't supported by esxi.


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    DF VIP Member Scottio200's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone installed ESXi on the new HP G1610T microservers?

    I have the GT2020 (same as yours but with celeron processor) and have ESXi 5.5 installed with no issues using the built in storage controller.

    One thing I would say was that I was having a ton of issues using the HP wizard to install.

    Just put the iso image on a USB stick, put it on the motherboard, and booted to it directly. Installed fine with no issues and sees my raid setup with no issues at all

    Currently have XPEnology and win 2012 r2 on it.

    Thanks

    Scottio

    Thanks to Scottio200

    evilsatan (7th March 2015)  


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    DF VIP Member Scottio200's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone installed ESXi on the new HP G1610T microservers?

    Quote Originally Posted by evilsatan View Post

    I assume I can upgrade the CPU/RAM in the future without having to reinstall?

    Cheers
    I went from 4gb to 12gb with no install of ESXi needed

  6. #6
    DF Super Moderator
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    Default Re: Anyone installed ESXi on the new HP G1610T microservers?

    Ha, I've spent quite a lot of time this week looking into raid controllers under the impression that I needed one for esxi. Not sure what to do now... RAID5 was what I wanted which needs a controller and there will be performance benefits and it would make a good test bed which is what this server is for.

    How ow do you like the server? I think it's looks awesome inside and out, looks like a vast improvement over the G7 range.


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    DF VIP Member Scottio200's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone installed ESXi on the new HP G1610T microservers?

    One thing to remember is that by using another raid controller boosts the fans up a little bit. Not sure if that is an issue for you or not? But I keep mine under my TV so a quiet fan is a must!

    Im loving the Gen8, has been my first server so don't really have anything to compare. But for the size and the price nothing comes close. iLO is a godsend for setting up, did most of it on my sofa, using my iPhone!

  8. #8
    DF Super Moderator
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    Default Re: Anyone installed ESXi on the new HP G1610T microservers?

    Had I realised that the onboard controller would work with ESXi and iLO then I wouldn't have considered a physical RAID card. But now I have spent ages researching it and have had some help from members here I am going to try and get one if the price is right as I hope to use this server to run a lot of VMs in the future and it will be a pain to upgrade it down the line. In the long run the initial cost will average down, it's just surprised me how much the £185 server has ended up costing with storage, controller and RAM!!

    Not sure if I am best using a SATA2 SSD or MicroSD card to host ESXi, I might possibly have a SATA3 SSD in my HTPC which I can swap for my SATA2 one but does the extra bandwidth have much effect on ESXi?


  9. #9
    DF VIP Member Over Carl's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone installed ESXi on the new HP G1610T microservers?

    I would try out ESXi on the SD first. If it works fine and boots up in a reasonable time, it may be an idea to use the SSD as cache.

    The cost is what's put me off for ages. I really want a Microserver crammed full of big drives but that's not cheap.

  10. #10
    DF Super Moderator
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    Default Re: Anyone installed ESXi on the new HP G1610T microservers?

    I'm starting with 1TB WD Red drives as I have one already so only need 3 more. Also 3TB storage is loads as this won't hold any big media files etc.


  11. #11
    DF VIP Member Likkle's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone installed ESXi on the new HP G1610T microservers?

    ESXi is a separate entity, its just what ties the Networking/Storage etc together its just a variant of unix apart from the initial boot its not really doing much in terms of I/O. SD is the way to go with ESXi even the most enterprise hosts out there will have SD installations in place (although these will be raided between two cards) but i havent seen an enterprise SD card fail yet (touchwood)

    So yeah when your looking at speedof storage in a virtual world you need to look at at storage types and IOPS

    Thin Provisioned (you provision a say a 60gb disk on each machine) you can over-commit thin provisioned disks so say if you've got an OS partition a 60gb disk but the windows takes 12gb. Although you've given it a 60gb disc only 12gb is used on the datastore itself. Youd then create shares on your other discs which youd share via iSCSI and present to your VM's

    Thick Provision - There are a few variants such as lazy/eager - Eitherway this eats up your diskspace as you provision. So you give a VM a 60gb disk that space is reserved and reserved by the OS. Unless you've got a massive infrastructure that needs Fault tolerance id go for thin provisioned personally.

    So i dont know if there are any spare SATA slots/Power you can pull off these boards i know youd could just take the optical out of the old ones but i would do it like this. Add your SSD and install the VM's OS drives to this disk, any files/programs install it to the WD Reds shared discs. Then use a backup solution (veeam if possible) to pull machine backups every night.

    When your looking at putting VM's on disks your looking at IOPS, and although reds are wicked solid drives they are pretty slow in terms of IOPS if you want to run a fair few VM's it may be a bit laggy if you use SSD storage they will fly. Another limiting factor may be the CPU by default i think that CPU is dual core if you running a lot of VM's it will be trying to schedule time on the physical CPU but the kernel cant access it because that cores being used by another CPU, if you go log into vSphere and look at the performance tab and change the graph to CPU Ready if you are having high results then its struggling its the delay in between requesting the time and the physical CPU accessing it, if you have say SQL on there it will smash the CPU if its a large db more than anything else.

    Anyway sorry to jabber on, i think you will be sound to be honest i would get everything installed and see how you get on you can spend silly amounts of money if you go to deep lol

    Thanks to Likkle

    evilsatan (12th March 2015)  


  12. #12
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    Default Re: Anyone installed ESXi on the new HP G1610T microservers?

    Thanks for that, I think I will use the SD card for esxi, the 40GB sata2 SSD as a cache drive and install the VMs on the raid5 array. Then when budget permits I will upgrade from 10GB to 16GB ram, try and get a Xeon in there and perhaps set up a pair of SSDs in raid0 using the onboard controller to hold the VMs with backups going to the raid5 array.

    Does that sound good to everyone? I have already gone well over budget on the parts to date hence holding off the ram, cpu and more SSDs for now. I might poss have a sata3 SSD in my HTPC which I can swap with the SATA2 one so its a bit faster but I will check if the ODD SATA port is 2 or 3 first.


  13. #13
    DF VIP Member Likkle's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone installed ESXi on the new HP G1610T microservers?

    Yeah man sounds cool, if you wanted to have a play with ESXi before you got the microserver your desktop would be more than enough to run a decent host. If you download VM workstation (from a non official source) and download esxi itself (legtimate, just register an account) you can spin it up on there and add some virtual machines on all within the nested esxi install on your windows install. No real need to do it i suppose but in essence you could build your VM's before the microserver even arrived and copy over the vmdk's and import them into the inventory on the microserver.

  14. #14
    DF Super Moderator
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    Default Re: Anyone installed ESXi on the new HP G1610T microservers?

    I'm lacking time atm but I have ordered the MicroSD card so when that arrives I will get the HP ESXi image on there and give it a go before I get the RAID controller sorted


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