A new vSphere Homebrew/Whitebox EU style

Inspired by Chad Sakac’s post about his whitebox update I decided to see what the prices for two new whiteboxes would be like in Europe. After some investigation I ordered the following setup (twice ;-)):

• A Intel mainboard: https://www.afuture.nl/products/8743/BOXDH55HC_Intel_DH55HC.html
• 16 GB DDR3 RAM: https://www.afuture.nl/products/136933/GVP38GB1333C9DC_Geil_GVP38GB1333C9DC.html
• A WD 1 TB HDD: https://www.afuture.nl/products/123020/WD10EALX_Western_digital_Caviar_Blue-_1TB.html
• A Midi tower with powersupply: https://www.afuture.nl/products/57919/ATX7006B_LC-Power_7006B_-_ATX_Classic.html
• A intel Xeon 3440 (HT): https://www.afuture.nl/products/8874/BX80605X3440_Intel_Intel_Xeon_X3440.html
• Two Intel GT NIC’s: https://www.afuture.nl/products/15738/PWLA8391GT_Intel_Intel_PRO-1000_GT.html

Be Aware that in my list no Graphic card is included which is a must with the XEON processor (when you want to use the onboard GPU, you’ll have to get a i7 930 or something equivalent). I had two spare ATI 4550 cards, so i’ll use them.

Total cost: € 571,30 (without shipping cost)

I sold my two old whiteboxes (Q6700, 8GB and 320 GB HDD) for € 250,- each so my total cost for a new vSphere lab:

€ 1150,- – € 500,- = € 650,- (not bad I think)

Great price and full warranty 😉 For shared storage i’ve always used Openfiler, but after watching the first two EMC webcast’s (by Simon Seagrave and Rick Scherer) i’ve decided to play with the EMC Celerra Virtual Storage Appliance.