So I was browsing craigslist earlier this week and came across a cheap Dell R710 server. Dual 2.93 GHz quad core Xeon processors (X5570), 36GB Ram Perc H700 raid controller, dual power supplies (no drives) all for $200. Tossed in a spare SSD I had, loaded ESXi onto it and now I've got a pretty powerful virtualization platform without spending much at all.
Love my laptop for VMs, but can be a hassle when dealing with storage space. It's nice to off-load VMs I don't use as often but could be a nice project reference in the future onto a server. Should allow me to create large test environments, and variety.
Seems the r710s are pretty popular for homelabs due to the power/price ratio. Really happy I stumbled on that! Ebay seems to have plenty of these things in different configurations so go get one for yourself!
Love my laptop for VMs, but can be a hassle when dealing with storage space. It's nice to off-load VMs I don't use as often but could be a nice project reference in the future onto a server. Should allow me to create large test environments, and variety.
Seems the r710s are pretty popular for homelabs due to the power/price ratio. Really happy I stumbled on that! Ebay seems to have plenty of these things in different configurations so go get one for yourself!