My current home lab setup is fairly basic at the moment. Aside from the normal home router / switch / hub collection and tangle or associated cables there is only one other item. Like many with home labs I opted for an HP ML110 server. It’s small enough to fit in all but the tiniest of homes, no more power hungry than a normal PC and, apart from when it is first powered on, it’s quiet.

I’ve had this server since early 2009 and at the time it was sold at a bargain price of about £200. To be of any use whatsoever I also had to fill it up with RAM (8Gb maximum is supported) bringing the total cost to about £270.

It has since been superseded by Generation 6 (G6) models, which also make great home lab servers. For the best deals you can either scout around yourself or bookmark Simon Seagrave’s “Hot Deals” page on his Techhead blog where these sorts of servers frequently feature.

The basic price of the server gets you the following:

HP ML110 G5 E3110 NHP SATA
533548-xx1		 Processor(s) (1) Intel® Xeon® processor E3110 (3.00 GHz, 65W, 1333MHz FSB, 6MB)
Cache Memory 6MB (2 x 3MB) Level 2 cache
Memory 1GB PC2-6400 UB ECC (DDR2- 800 MHz) (1×1GB)
Storage Controller HP Embedded 6 Port SATA Controller with Embedded RAID (4 ports for HDD)
Hard Drive 1 x 160GB 3.5-inch Non-hot-plug LFF SATA
Internal Storage Non-Hot Plug SATA: Maximum 4.0TB (4 x 1TB)
Optical Drive Half-Height 16x SATA DVD-ROM
Form Factor Micro ATX Tower (4U)

Buyer beware though. Whilst it is unlikely that you’ll find many of these being sold new now, or if you’re looking at one on ebay, check the specification advertised very carefully. The G5 was / is also offered sporting a Pentium E2160 processor and that chip does not feature the Intel-VT virtualisation extensions. Without these virtual machines will run like a dog.

So, what do I run on this server. One option is to install a desktop operating system (Windows 7 for instance) and have VMware Workstation installed on that to allow you to create Virtual Machines. ESX and ESXi can be installed as Virtual Machines relatively easily as long as you have an up to date version of VMware Workstation. You then have a platform on which to learn about Virtualisation.

I started out that way. It does work but it’s shockingly slow and Windows (7 / Vista / 2003 / 2008 / XP) takes up a percentage of your server’s resources before you even get started and when you’re trying to squeeze lots of nested Virtual Machines in, things can quickly grind to a halt.

The alternative is to install ESXi directly on the server. The HP ML110 G5 doesn’t appear on VMware’s supported HCL but ESX / ESXi can be installed on it. After that, Virtual Machines can be created running Windows servers or, more importantly, ESX and ESXi. You can create mini clusters and experiment with evaluation licenses until you heart’s content.

I plan to update my lab shortly with some iSCSI / NFS storage and a VLAN capable switch. Maybe an extra server too. I’ll update this when that happens.