You may remember the Home Virtualization Project from last year. In that project, I converted my existing server, based on a Shuttle XPC (SP35P2 Pro, to be more precise) from a Linux server running VMware Server 2.0 to a VMware ESXi 3.5 server. It worked well, but left a few things to be desired, such as..
- No RAID
- Onboard NIC required significant fiddling to get working under ESXi 3.5u4
- No onboard video, so I needed a video card, plus a network card to get going (the real root cause of #1 above).
- A bit loud. The system wasn’t terribly loud, but for something that’s on full-time in the background in my office, it could be distracting at times.
So here we are, it’s a brand-new year, so the big project was an upgrade, inspired by some requirements I found with a project at work. In the end, the old server was converted into a workstation and now has a happy home. So what’s the current system? Another Shuttle XPC. This time, it’s the SG45H7. This is a slightly smaller chassis than the already small SP35P2 Pro. The SP line has space for 2 hard drives up top, above the optical drive that the SG line lacks, resulting in a shorter case. The SG45H7 is targeted as an HTPC, and includes onboard video with both SVGA and HDMI outputs. Further, it includes 2 expansion slots, one PCIe x16 and one PCI. Continue reading Home Virtualization Project 2.0