Building a Home Server: Mini Host Cluster Setup

Building a Home Server: Mini Host Cluster Setup

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Comments:

  1. Wallet decides everything; don’t spend a lot of money just to set up a home server or high-performance host;

  2. Unless you absolutely need high specifications for a single machine application, don’t go overboard with configurations; it’s a bottomless pit;

  3. In today’s IT environment, cloud and containers are both cluster deployments that better meet reliability and high availability.

Original:https://domalab.com/build-homelab-setup-idea/

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Looking to set up a home lab and seeking ideas? Here are mine!

Building a Home Server: Mini Host Cluster Setup

Computing

This might be one of the most crucial units I have in my home lab environment. After extensive research, I chose the Intel NUC. There are various reasons for this choice, primarily low power consumption and ultra-low noise levels. After purchasing the first one and checking consistent performance, I decided to buy more of the same to maintain consistency in my home lab setup.

When first updating this page, the latest version of Intel NUC shipped with Intel processors (Comet Lake/Frost Canyon) of the 10th generation. When writing the first version of this page, I chose the 6th generation version (Skylake / Swift Canyon). With the help of the built-in network card from Intel, they can almost run the latest versions of VMware vSphere 6.0, 6.5, 6.7, 7.0, and 7.0u1 out of the box. The latest version of VMware 7 has bundled the required Intel network card drivers for Intel NUC. For more information, there’s a great resource at virten.net. Additionally, I created an article that showcases the steps to upgrade an existing VMware ESXi installation, searching and comparing driver details with the official VMware compatibility list.

If I really need to find one, the only caveat is: there is only one built-in network card. However, this is not an issue. If we need to add more network cards, we can simply use additional USB network adapters and utilize Jose Gomes’ excellent drivers. I am using Realtek-based NICs, which perform remarkably well and are stable. Since VMware version 7.0, Linux kernel drivers are no longer a viable option. From VMware 7.0 onwards, a new VMware native driver model has been in place, which can add USB network adapters using the packages provided on the Fling VMware website. Packages based on Linux kernel drivers do not work in 7.0 and above.

Meanwhile, as my home lab grows, I have added more Intel NUC 7i7DNHE based on the 8th generation (Kaby Lake R / Dawson Canyon). The considerations for VMware ESXi installation are exactly the same as for the 6th generation, including additional support for the built-in network drivers. Furthermore, for the 8th generation and VMware 7.0, the preferred option is the new VMware native drivers, which perform well even when used with virtual distributed switches and several VLANs. For more ideas on configuring VLANs and multiple USB network adapters, see here. The good news is that all NUC generations starting from the 6th generation support 64 GB of RAM, and possibly even more if more RAM slots are available, especially with newer CPUs. A quick article demonstrates how to run 64 GB of RAM on Intel NUC and upgrade the BIOS to the latest version. This is excellent for higher virtual machine density for each ESXi host!

Building a Home Server: Mini Host Cluster Setup 4x Intel NUC 7i7DNHE Intel Core i7 1.9 GHz 4x Samsung 64 GB RAM 4x WD Green 120 GB M.2 SSD 4 USB network adapters (Anker – Realtek)
Building a Home Server: Mini Host Cluster Setup 4x Intel NUC 6i5SYH Intel Core i5 1.8 GHz 4x Crucial 32 GB RAM 4 Kingston 120 GB M.2 SSD 1x USB network adapter (Anker 3-port USB-Realtek) 1 USB network adapter (Anker – Realtek) 1 USB network adapter (Anker – Realtek) 1 USB network adapter (TP-Link – Realtek)

Networking

For the networking layer, I initially chose a small, cheap managed switch from Netgear. Meanwhile, the home lab environment evolved by adding more hosts and storage. Therefore, over time, I bought four of these Netgear switches. There are some features that make these little switches desirable: VLAN and jumbo frame support up to 9KB. Perfect for playing with a homelab. Unfortunately, I encountered some issues with VLAN 802.1Q support even after installing the latest firmware. Recently, the four small Netgear switches were replaced with a more user-friendly and powerful TP-Link smart managed switch with 24 gigabit ports. VLAN 802.1Q works great, configuration is quick, and overall it’s a champion.

Over time, I also noticed that this configuration performs well and is stable across all TP-Link models. I also attempted to upgrade the firmware from V1 to V2, and the entire process was very straightforward. If you plan to use these with VLANs, make sure not to use PVLAN (Private VLAN) as the firmware for these models does not support such configurations. Lastly, these are just entry-level managed switch models but still contain many good features.

As computing evolved, I decided to maintain the same network redundancy approach and invested in several TP-Link Layer 2 managed switches. Specifically, I chose the T2600G-18TS model. These models are rich in Layer 2 features and are absolutely great models for a home lab at an affordable price.

Building a Home Server: Mini Host Cluster Setup TP-Link TL-SG1024DE simple smart switch 24-port gigabit VLAN support for traffic segmentation IGMP snooping for multicast optimization jumbo frame support for up to 9 KB packet size
Building a Home Server: Mini Host Cluster Setup 2x TP-Link T2600G-18TS 16-port gigabit L2 managed VLAN support for traffic segmentation IGMP snooping for multicast optimization jumbo frame support for up to 9 KB packet size rich L2 switch

Storage

What about the storage layer?

I must admit that I am a happy customer of Synology. Initially, I bought a DS416Play model running 4x 3TB Western Digital Red Pro Drives. All configured with RAID 10. Therefore, basically 6TB is available for various purposes. As the home lab environment continuously evolved, I decided this time to choose an additional Synology DS916+, equipped with 4x 1TB SSD drives. This runs on RAID 5 providing 3TB of storage. The former is storing backups and running data deduplication virtual devices like Dell EMC Data Domain and HPE StoreOnce. The latter is where the main storage and all virtual machines run from.

The new one also comes with certified support for VMware VAAI integration. Both Synology NAS are configured with various iSCSI LUNs that I use for several VMware data stores. Last but not least, there are many easy-to-install and configure applications. Some of these have proven helpful for the home lab environment, such as additional servers for DNS, Syslog, etc.

Compared to when I started, the cost of SSDs is decreasing, and the cost of a 1TB SSD disk is not really intimidating. Since I want to further expand the homelab, why not add a DS620Slim with all SSDs and upgrade to 6GB of RAM? A perfect NAS with full functionality and a very small form factor.

Building a Home Server: Mini Host Cluster Setup 1x Synology DS416Play 4x 3TB WD Red Pro – 1GB RAM RAID 10 dual gigabit LAN ports running link aggregation backup storage
Building a Home Server: Mini Host Cluster Setup 1x Synology DS916+ 4x 1TB SSD – 8GB RAM RAID 5 dual gigabit LAN certified integration with VMware, Citrix, Hyper-V main storage
Building a Home Server: Mini Host Cluster Setup 1x Synology DS620Slim 6GB RAM 4x 1TB SSD RAID 5 2x 1TB SSD RAID 0 dual gigabit LAN certified integration with VMware, Citrix, Hyper-V main storage and rapid recovery

What Applications Can I Run in Such a Home Lab?

Of course, this list is not exhaustive but helps us understand what we can do with this home lab. This list also includes links to articles on this blog for step-by-step browsing.

Hypervisors:

  • VMware ESXi 6.0
  • VMware ESXi 6.5
  • VMware ESXi 6.7
  • VMware ESXi 7.0
  • VMware ESXi 7.0u1
  • Acropolis Hypervisor (nested in VMware)
  • Citrix XenServer 7.4 (nested in VMware)
  • Hyper-V Core 2012 R2 (nested in VMware)
  • Hyper-V Core 2016 (nested in VMware)
  • Hyper-V Core 2019 (nested in VMware)

Server and Desktop OS Applications in VMware as Virtual Machines:

  • FreeBSD NAS4Free
  • FreeBSD FreeNAS
  • Linux CentOS
  • Linux ClearOS
  • Linux SUSE
  • Linux Ubuntu Desktop
  • Linux Ubuntu Server
  • Linux RedHat Enterprise
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2016
  • Oracle Solaris

Nutanix Server OS Applications Nested in VMware vSphere:

  • Windows Server 2016
  • Linux Ubuntu 20.04

Virtual Storage Devices:

  • Cloudian
  • Dell EMC Data Domain Virtual Edition
  • Dell EMC Isilon
  • Dell EMC Unity
  • FreeNAS
  • HPE 3PAR Simulator
  • HPE StoreOnce
  • HPE StoreVirtual
  • NetApp ONTAP Simulator
  • NetApp Virtual Storage Console
  • NexentaStor Community Edition
  • StarWind Cloud VTL for AWS
  • StarWind Virtual SAN
  • Quantum DXi Virtual Edition

Hyper-Converged Platforms:

  • Nutanix CE (nested in VMware)

Cloud:

  • Amazon Storage Gateway

Data Protection Applications:

  • Veeam Agent for Linux
  • Veeam Solaris Agent
  • Veeam Windows Agent
  • Veeam Availability for Nutanix
  • Veeam Backup & Replication
  • Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager
  • Veeam Backup for Office 365
  • VMware vSphere Data Protection

Deployment of Server Applications:

  • AvePoint DocAve
  • IBM Lotus QuickR
  • IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
  • Microsoft Active Directory
  • Microsoft Exchange
  • Microsoft Office 365
  • Microsoft SharePoint
  • Microsoft SQL Cluster
  • Microsoft SQL Server
  • Oracle Database 12c
  • Oracle Database 19C
  • Veeam Backup & Replication
  • Veeam Backup Agent
  • Veeam ONE
  • VMware vCenter 6.0
  • VMware VCSA 6.5
  • VMware VCSA 6.7

Monitoring:

  • Turbonomic VMTurbo
  • Veeam ONE

Networking:

  • Veeam PN

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