Cheap/Best Value VM host

[SimonMac]

Just wondering why you want to run it on something else?

I have the 2012 i7 quad core macmini server with a couple of vm's + my plex server. It has 16GB ram 1TB SSD + 2TB HDD. I decided not to upgrade to something else when I used smart energy monitor to check its power consumption. It has to be one of the most efficient small form PC's around pulling around 15w under average load. Total consumption for Last 30 days is 11.2kwh compared 22.1kwh on my (slow marvel processor) Synology NAS which is hardly accessed.

The VM's are on the MacMini, the storage on a NAS that is connected by iSCSI which seems flakey at best, also the CPU for hte MacMini is not upto scratch (I don't have the i7 quad core) so can struggle on some CPU tasks as it's shares the resource with so much already

[spongeym]

HP Microserver

I've got the previous generation of this.
https://www.hpe.com/uk/en/product-ca...009955118.html

Have got 8gb RAM, 4 various hard drives I've used in a NAS and it's running my Windows 2012 & 2016 labs, albeit at minimum spec, they don't need to be anything beefy as I use Server Manager locally to managed. Got 4 Windows Servers and a couple of Win 10 machine running with some POC Linux boxes also.

HP are are alway doing rebates on these so keep an eye out for cash back!

[amanwhoisquiet]

I got an old monster of a rack server off ebay for about £200 (12 cores and 64GB) (with no rack to put it in). It's alright in the garage and because I don't need it running all the time I can just cable up the ILO port as well as one or more of the proper NICs and power on/off the server itself through that interface.

[fatJock]

I use an HP microserver too - brilliant bit of kit and there’s often cash back.

[SimonMac]

I got an old monster of a rack server off ebay for about £200 (12 cores and 64GB) (with no rack to put it in). It's alright in the garage and because I don't need it running all the time I can just cable up the ILO port as well as one or more of the proper NICs and power on/off the server itself through that interface.

How does the server cope in the garage with the extremes of heat and cold?

[amanwhoisquiet]

How does the server cope in the garage with the extremes of heat and cold?

It's not doing anything so important that I'd be upset if it died during, but it's seemed fine so far over these last few weeks and that's been the coldest I've ever known my part of the country to get. I'll let you know this summer if it decides to flip its lid over the heat, but the garage overall is big enough that it never gets sweltering.