millerjs.org

Okay, well, I have had this blogging platform (or whatever it's called) up and running for about three months now, so I figured I might as well go ahead and post something. I don't have a good introductory post idea or a well structured project, but I have been thinking about my home lab quite a bit lately and I need to start recording some of this mess.

I have a lot of computers, new and old, super powered and super dinky. Right now what I'm most interested in organizing and planning for are the newer machines that can handle modern workloads and are actually (potentially) useful to me. Right now what I'm looking at is as follows: (specifically for "infrastructure" machines)

• TS140

* Main server, some aspects change a lot. Right now it runs all my services aside from storage.
* E3-1220v3, 4x4GB DDR3 ECC REG, 2x480GB SSD RAID0, Ubuntu 16.04.4
* SSDs don't need to be RAID'd, or setup dual 240GB in RAID0 instead.
* RAID0 only used recently for performance, and it's not appreciably better, so IDK.
* Have thought about upgrading to an E3-1275v3 but it's not a huge bump in performance, mostly just going from 4c/4t to 4c/8t. Still expensive...
* Would also like a 40g Mellanox card in it.
* Might get another? (Have a possible lead)

• Optiplex 7010

* i5-3475S, 2x4GB & 2x2GB DDR3, 240GB(?) SSD, Win10
* This box needs a life. It's a good machine but doesn't get enough use. It has been a dedicated GIS workstation as well as a dedicated 3D printing workstation but neither persisted. I think it will be my desktop linux box on a DVI KVM with Theseus

• Cisco UCS C220 M3

* E5-2609v2, 8x4GB DDR3 ECC REG, 600GB SAS Spinner, ESXi 6.7
* New from defor, and also the machine that prompted this post. It is a bit older than the TS140 but I think more capable.
* I got it with 16GB RAM but moved 4 more 4GB DIMMs from ML350G6. Will add another 32GB when I get a 2nd CPU.
* Would like a 4c/8t or 6c/12t pair of CPUs for it, but those cost dollars. See below plans...
* CPU Plans:
	* Plan A: Do nothing, leave it at a single E5-2609v2 for now
	* Plan B: Get another E5-2609v2 for cheap.
		* Pros? Cheap. $40 shipped.
		* Cons? Only 4c/4t 2.4GHz. Have to get a second heatsink - $40-50
	* Plan C: Get two beefier E5s. e.g. 2620v2 (6c/12t)
		* Pros? More power (can compete with TS140 more gooder), should last longer
		* Cons? Expensive. $150ish including heatsink. 
	* Plan $$$: Get two E5-2697 v2s
		* Pros? Awesome.
		* Cons? $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ 
* Storage. Right now this thing has the single stock 600GB 10k SAS drive. It's not cutting it for a VM host.
	* Unfortunately, sleds are not as cheap as I would like. Hovering around $10-15/ea. I would like to get 8, but spending $70-110 on trays is out of the question at the moment. I'll be happy with two more if I can get them at $10/ea.
	* Media - HDDs or SSDs? I lean to SSDs as often as possible for a few reasons: speed, noise, and heat. All my bulk storage is handled by the NAS which has ~5TB available across both volumes. My VM projects do not tend to be data heavy, at the most requiring 40-60GB space for media, and even then most of that is scratch/temp. Windows VMs occupy the most space - right now even a base windows 7 vhd is like.. 40GB (and I always thin provision). I like to keep compute VMs below 8GB unless necessary. I would really like faster network storage, and I have something in the works (sneak peek: it involves 40g Mellanox/Infiniband cards with point-to-point connections). Ultimately, right now I'm thinking about starting with two 240s in either RAID1 or AID0 (because RAID0 don't be redundant, y'all) depending on how dangerous I feel. The TS140 will remain my "production" box, so by and large I don't expect anything on the C220 to be critical in the event that a RAID0-SSD dies on me.
		* HDDs - if I can find a fourth caddy cheap enough, I would like to throw a 1TB 7.2kRPM laptop drive in there - a cheap seagate or WD will do. This would be for slow storage, e.g. backups, ISOs, VM overflow, etc, and would provide me with four tiers of storage: fast SSDs, slow 600GB 10k SAS, really slow 1TB HDD for "cool" (lukewarm?) storage, and a gig link for NFS - to be upgraded to 40g IB(?).

• ML350 G6

* Ugh. It's complicated. Parts are scattered in other machines. But...
* 1 or 2 X5660s, up to 72GB RAM (18 4GB ECC REG DIMMs), Adaptec 2405 SATA RAID card + onboard RAID
* I want to sell it, but I don't know anyone who wants it. Too big and heavy to ship, probably asking too much locally. Should pull the X5660 back from the T3500 to make it complete.

• T3500

* Also a bit ugh.
* X5660 (from above), 8GB RAM, GTX265, misc SSD, two 3TB reds in RAID1
* Newest machine with PCI slots, will be driving the new tape drive. 
* Need a standalone CPU for it, probably just 4c/8t - E5630 is less than $10 shipped.

• Optiplex 3010 (honorable mention)

* i3-2100 (?), 2GB DDR3, misc. HDD, HP nc630 dual Gig-E NIC, pfsense
* Nothing about this needs to be changed, though I may switch down to an ARM based router (e.g. ER-X, if the firmware is fixed). Just wanted to mention it because it's technically a PC in my infrastructure. 

• Three DL380 G5s

* Also from defor, have not yet tested them at all. Dual CPUs in each, and I think 16GB (2x8GB FBDIMM) in each. Need more 2.5" drives and caddies.
* Do not need all three, will likely give at least two away, eventually all three. Depends on noise and power consumption.

So, there's that. Right now my plan is basic: go ahead and get a heatsink for the C220M3, since I know I will drop another CPU in it. Filling it to 64GB RAM (using the 4GB DIMMs I have) will leave 12 (48GB) for the ML350G6, leaving it still viable for sale. Get a cheap CPU for the T3500 - like a $25 hex core or a $6 E-series 4/8, giving the X5660 back to the ML350G6. Then continue to eye prices for either another E5-2609v2, or splurge on a pair of 2620s, 2637s, or 2640s. If I can find a super cheap 2609 I may just jump on it, and likewise if I can get a good deal on a set of hex or octa core chips. Frankly I'd rather go ahead and invest in chips with more, faster, cores because I know I have workloads that require fast cores, and I have many that also can leverage massively parallel distribution (e.g. raster processing). I also don't want to have two cheap 2609s holding me back from upgrading - one big step is wiser than two medium steps. Just have to wait for a good deal.

Expect to see more rambling on this in the future...