To kick-off my blog I wanted to tell something about my server setup. It’s nice to know info, but I will base most tutorials on virtual machines and containers using Proxmox VE – my choice of hypervisor.
Hardware
In order to make a server, you actually need hardware. To keep costs low for my home setup I always use refurbished materials (except for the storage).
I am using a supermicro X9DRL-if which is a dual socket LGA2011 platform with Intel C602 chipset. Capacity for 256GB of DDR3 ECC registered memory, which I actually have installed (enough for my usecase)
For the CPU I’m using a Intel Xeon E5-2680V2… actually 2 of those. per CPU we are talking about 10 cores and 20 threads at 2.80GHz to 3.8GHz. These retail for a price between 60 and 120 euros per unit. Dumpster dives will sometimes result in a good find.
For storage I have:
- 2x 1TB – HDD – media
- 4x 2TB – HDD – NAS
- 1x 3TB – HDD – VM’s
- 4x 250GB – SSD – drive cache
The 2TB drives are used for NAS and are configured in a Raid ZFS1 pool.
Of-course I didn’t slap all of this together and call it a day; I am using a 4U chassis.
OS
For OS I’m using Proxmox VE which is free to use. Proxmox Virtual Environment (VE) is a complete open-source platform for all-inclusive enterprise virtualization that tightly integrates KVM hypervisor and LXC containers, software-defined storage, and networking functionality on a single platform. With the integrated web-based user interface you can manage your highly available clusters or the integrated disaster recovery tools with ease. Enterprise-class features and a 100% software-based focus make Proxmox VE the perfect choice to virtualize your IT infrastructure, optimize existing resources and increase efficiencies with minimal expense. You can easily virtualize even the most demanding Linux and Windows application workloads, and dynamically scale computing and storage as your needs grow ensuring that your data center adjusts for future growth.
Below is a screenshot of my interface on the moment of writing.
After reading this You know what I am using; Tutorial about installing proxmox can be found here
Thanks for reading
