Home server build

[potts.mike]

After doing a little research it does seem that the motherboard does not support server os. I got the network adapter working with a hack but there rest of the drivers it doesn't look like will install. Weighing my options I could try and get esxi running and then run whs2011, a couple linux vms and 1 or 2 windows 7 instances but ti would still require the network driver hack. The other option would be to load windows 7 and then run vmware player for the VMs. Any thoughts either way?

 

[video321]

Well... first off the NIC would need to be supported under ESXi and an older version of it (before they ripped out drivers) may be the better (read: easier) option. If that does work then you wouldn't need the driver under WHS unless you passed it through - your NIC is a virtualized model. The better option would be to get yourself a nice Intel NIC for ESXi and use the onboard NIC for a different purpose.
 
Running your VMs on top of Windows is an option, but not ideal. I will say that is exactly what I'm doing right now as my "server" has a base install of Win 7 that is my HTPC with VMs running off that. It really sucks when I need to reboot the Win 7 machine while doing any maintenance work.

 

[potts.mike]

I don't have any where to put a new nic and have zero experience with esxi. I'm leaning towards running all the windows apps on a well backed up machine and then using vmware player or Virtualbox for the Linux machines.

 

[pete_c]

Yeah I thought you were building a VM base and using Windows/Linux VMs.
 
You can also utilize a Gb USB NIC using a USB 3.0 port if you want. 
 
I am currently utilizing multiport Intel NICs (kind of big) for my PFSense box and recently purchased quad port Intel Nics (got a deal on new ones).
 
Personally here was testing WHS2011 for new box build for Homeseer some three or so years ago. 
 
The mods for the OS to get the SAPI TTS running were a PITA.  I was documenting the build on Homeseer doing picture thing.  I paid some $50.00 for WHS2011 at the time.  (Did notice Walmart has it for $29.99 now...).  Microsoft did strip out most of the WHS functionality and didn't offer any a la cart updates to that base of WHS2011.  The other mods I did were register hacks to make the box more Server 2011 than WHS.
 
I digressed though and fell back to using WIndows Server Standard as it worked well with SAPI.  (AT&T and Neospeech).
 
I did test Homeseer 2 running in a VM and it worked just fine connecting virtually to my Digi / Lantronics USB network boxes which were connected to Digi USB hubs and Digi Edgports all via the network.  Worked fine at the time and made for a portable build of Homeseer.

 

[hardatk]

Just saw this thread and I thought I would chime in...
 
I would suggest picking up used commercial servers online (ebay / craigslist) for cheap... for example I have 4 Dell Poweredge 2950s and I got each for around $300 shipped, you do have to do some research depending on what features you want (has to have VT-x / VT-d if you want to have advanced VM features). Going with a commercial server product can have some nice perks... for example the Dell servers have a hardware remote access card that uses a separate NIC to provide admin capabilities (including remote power on / off). They are much more resilient as well, many feature dual bios and dual redundant PSU for example. Many are already well suited to running eXSI with quad-core 
 
There are a few drawbacks, one is the formfactor (I have a 42u server rack also from craigslist), power consumption can be high especially with quad-core xeon processors, lastly memory... most commercial servers use the more expensive ECC memory (The 2950 also requires it to be buffered)... so while you'll find cheap servers, they typically have less memory. 
 
I will also agree that FreeNas is an amazing product... and if you want to run your own firewall / dns / proxy / etc... I would suggest looking at pfsense.