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hardware upgrade ESXi


error403

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Hi,

 

currently I'm running Debian latest with VMWare Workstation powering DSM 6. I'd like to switch to ESXi and pass a PCIe SATA card through to DSM. So I'm looking for new hw.

 

It doesn't need to be of highest performance. Realtime transcoding of a 1080p stream (min. 1) would be nice though. But even my old Core2Quad desktop can do that, so..

 

Could someone recommend a mainboard to me supporting VT-d and working with this kind of project? Also, can you recommend me a SATA card? For CPU I'd guess I'd go with an i5.

Maybe two PCIe slots capable of being passed through to a VM would be nice, so I could install a second VM for gaming (Windows VM w/ real GPU).

 

Of course it's also about the budget.

 

Thank you!

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Hi,

 

currently I'm running Debian latest with VMWare Workstation powering DSM 6. I'd like to switch to ESXi and pass a PCIe SATA card through to DSM. So I'm looking for new hw.

 

It doesn't need to be of highest performance. Realtime transcoding of a 1080p stream (min. 1) would be nice though. But even my old Core2Quad desktop can do that, so..

 

Could someone recommend a mainboard to me supporting VT-d and working with this kind of project? Also, can you recommend me a SATA card? For CPU I'd guess I'd go with an i5.

Maybe two PCIe slots capable of being passed through to a VM would be nice, so I could install a second VM for gaming (Windows VM w/ real GPU).

 

Of course it's also about the budget.

 

Thank you!

 

In order to pass a pci-e card to a vm you will also need a cpu with vt-d supprt. So basicly you are searching for a Xeon processor or one of the minor version of the I5/I7 that does it as well.

 

I do have two ESXi boxes (HP Microserver Gen8, E3 Xeon), each with a LSI HBA passed in to a DSM6 vm. Works like a charm and even offers SMART information for all disk. Though, I do not realy have HW recommendations for you. I like the Microsever a lot, because it looks and feels like a NAS. I like the Dell T20, because its a good bang for the buck and it comes with a Xeon E3 CPU, though, withouth HT, but with vt-d.

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Thank you, I just found out the AMD FX based systems will fit my needs as they support IOMMU. For mainboard I'll go with ga-970a-ud3p As it seems to work just fine with ESXi. Still some planning to do though..

 

Are you sure that AMD FX based systems are supported by todays available DSM6 bootloaders?

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