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    Spec'ing a new workstation rig for my office

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved IT Discussion
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    • T
      technobabble
      last edited by

      I am tired of having multiple PC's in my home office mucking up my desk and making it harder to work on client's PC's. I was looking at a Asus with i7 32GB RAM and 1tb drive. The goal was to have VM's of earlier versions of Windows and be able to use one of them for Data recovery if possible.

      Would I be better off with a workstation using Xeons? I want my daily use of the PC to feel as if nothing else is happening while running the VMs.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • scottalanmillerS
        scottalanmiller
        last edited by

        Hard to imagine needing a Xeon for IT work. How many VMs do you plan to run and what do you intend to have them doing?

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • ?
          A Former User
          last edited by

          yeah, I have an HP Elite i7 with 8 gb of ram. I dont run vms, that's what my server is for. and i dont need all that horsepower, neither do you 🙂 but if you want it, buy it.

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          • scottalanmillerS
            scottalanmiller
            last edited by

            I run on an ancient Phenom II X3 with 4GB and it is great for me. A little more power wouldn't be bad, but it boots in like six seconds and works really well.

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            • T
              technobabble
              last edited by technobabble

              W7 VM for data recovery.

              W7, Vista and XP VMs, also need XP to recover my Office Accounting 2007 data

              VM to setup and check out Mint.

              VM for a Virtual Lab for testing Server 2012r2 (Can you run VMs inside VMs with their own Vnetwork?)

              scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • scottalanmillerS
                scottalanmiller @technobabble
                last edited by

                @technobabble said:

                VM for a Virtual Lab for testing Server 2012r2 (Can you run VMs inside VMs with their own Vnetwork?)

                yes but you really start hurting performance.

                T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • T
                  technobabble @scottalanmiller
                  last edited by

                  @scottalanmiller Noted!

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                  • ?
                    A Former User
                    last edited by

                    sounds like you should just get a workstation (vanilla) and a esxi host.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                    • JaredBuschJ
                      JaredBusch
                      last edited by

                      I recently dropped a SSD in my desktop and it now flies right along. I would go with this:

                      @Hubtech said:

                      sounds like you should just get a workstation (vanilla) and a esxi host.

                      I am still trying to get some gear for my office to have for testing. but no money for it and no used gear has fell in my lap yet.

                      ? 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • ?
                        A Former User @JaredBusch
                        last edited by

                        @JaredBusch said:

                        I recently dropped a SSD in my desktop and it now flies right along. I would go with this:

                        @Hubtech said:

                        sounds like you should just get a workstation (vanilla) and a esxi host.

                        I am still trying to get some gear for my office to have for testing. but no money for it and no used gear has fell in my lap yet.

                        Dude, I picked up some g5 dual quad xeon's for under 200 each. ebay bay bay

                        DashrenderD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • DashrenderD
                          Dashrender @A Former User
                          last edited by

                          @Hubtech said:

                          @JaredBusch said:

                          I recently dropped a SSD in my desktop and it now flies right along. I would go with this:

                          @Hubtech said:

                          sounds like you should just get a workstation (vanilla) and a esxi host.

                          I am still trying to get some gear for my office to have for testing. but no money for it and no used gear has fell in my lap yet.

                          Dude, I picked up some g5 dual quad xeon's for under 200 each. ebay bay bay
                          are you talking HP server?

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • alexntgA
                            alexntg
                            last edited by

                            If you're considering running multiple VMs on your computer rather than running them on a server, you're going to need more IOPS. Consider using an SSD for a system drive and perhaps some tiered storage, such as Windows Storage Spaces, for your VM and data volume.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • T
                              technobabble
                              last edited by

                              Thanks @alexntg

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • scottalanmillerS
                                scottalanmiller
                                last edited by

                                Use SSD no matter what. Best investment for a desktop.

                                T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                • T
                                  technobabble @scottalanmiller
                                  last edited by

                                  @scottalanmiller said:

                                  Use SSD no matter what. Best investment for a desktop.

                                  The last SSD I used died a horrible death 2 months ago. It was less than a year old. Many times a day it would show 100% disk usage and my PC would come to a crawl. I am guessing that I just had a lemon.

                                  alexntgA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • scottalanmillerS
                                    scottalanmiller
                                    last edited by

                                    We've been essentially all in SSD for years now. Haven't lost one yet. No issues at all. They've been amazing.

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • alexntgA
                                      alexntg @technobabble
                                      last edited by

                                      @technobabble said:

                                      @scottalanmiller said:

                                      Use SSD no matter what. Best investment for a desktop.

                                      The last SSD I used died a horrible death 2 months ago. It was less than a year old. Many times a day it would show 100% disk usage and my PC would come to a crawl. I am guessing that I just had a lemon.

                                      In that case, perhaps SSD system drive in RAID1

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                                      • scottalanmillerS
                                        scottalanmiller
                                        last edited by

                                        SSD are okay in RAID 5 too.

                                        alexntgA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • alexntgA
                                          alexntg @scottalanmiller
                                          last edited by

                                          @scottalanmiller said:

                                          SSD are okay in RAID 5 too.

                                          RAID5 SSDs seem a bit overkill for a system drive.

                                          scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • T
                                            technobabble
                                            last edited by

                                            @alexntg
                                            I was also looking to make my "desktop" a VM as well running on Hyper-V. I wanted to be able to test out backing up VM's and other cool stuff I read on ML.

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