My journey to virtualization began with vmware in 2012, at first just with the vmware player but later on with esxi (5.0).

At that time my whole concept was a single “server” using direct attached sata disks for storage and using a single network adapter for network connectivity.

The setup was a small AMD E-350D dual-core low-power CPU clocked at 1.6Ghz, 8GB RAM and a 500GB SATA disk i had lying around. Powered by esxi 5.0 i was able to virtualize some small tasks like a download vm using pyload or a networked printserver for my old usb printer. I played a bit around building more and more vms for different tasks so that every (groupable) task has its corresponding vm in case i need to put one down for maintenance.

Quickly the 8GB as well as the HDD’s IOPS where at a max, so adding another 8GB and a second harddrive was the obvious solution. Astonishingly the small CPU was able to provide good enough performance for my 4-8 vms i had at that time, which where debian and windows based.

At that time i only had 3mbit/s down and 300kbit/s up which limited the use of jdownloader over pyload, as jdownloaders immediate resource consumption is higher as pyloads, but when downloading pyload is far worse, but having only 3mbit/s results in an overall better performance of pyload.

When working in the IIT department of a local company i had contact with a 3 node esxi cluster with dual 6-core xeon-e5 with HT and 64GB ECC RAM (sadly no DRS as the license fees are…high), which was far more powerful than my little server. After some time i wanted to build my own small, but very efficient virtualization server for future expansion when more power is needed.

I ended up with the following build:

• Xeon e3-1265lv2 with a tdp of 45w
• 32GB DDR3 RAM
• Asus P8CWS with dual intel gbit lan and capable of vt-d (in case i need it)
• 2x500GB SATA (from previous build) + 1x 250GB
• 16GB USB thumb drive for esxi
• silenced case

Measuring the power consumption at the wall plug at full load it showed ~50W which i found impressive.