When working with a Holodeck environment, a pretty beefy system is required. While you can get vSAN Ready nodes from vendors like SuperMicro, Dell, HP, etc… I chose to DIY because I really enjoy building systems and wanted something more home-friendly (Read: Less power hungry and quieter.) I’ll do a more in-depth post soon, but for now I’ve had a number of request for my Bill Of Materials (BOM) for my new server.
Under Load Power Draw is approximately 140-150W and the noise level is roughly 45dbA (VERY QUIET!).
“Holodeck Logical View” Image source website: https://core.vmware.com/introducing-holodeck-toolkit
BOM
In the tables below, I have provided a brief description and link to the items I used for my builds.
Very little was existing/reused hardware. The only reused hardware was:
- One of the server cases (Reused my old Antec Sonata case with New PSU)
- Networking is all existing (Cisco/Netgear/Ubiquiti)
Approximate Build Cost and Server Specs
The pricing below is based on Shopping Sales, Amazon, eBay, etc…
The following are affiliate links. Any revenue generated via the links below will help pay for systems and services used in the hosting and production of my content:
Holodeck Server
- Build Cost: $8,100K USD
- Host OS: ESXi 8.0u3
- 64 Cores/128 Threads
- 576GB Memory
- 17+ TB of NVMe Storage
- 8 TB of SSD Storage
- Holodeck Deployment time: 3.25 hrs
| Part | Qty | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Case | 1 | Antec P101 | nice quiet mid-tower with plenty of airflow |
| Power | 1 | Thermaltake Toughpower GF A3 650W 80+ Gold Full Modular SLI/Crossfile Ready ATX 3.0 Standard Power Supply; PCIe Gen.5 300W 12VHPWR Connector Included; PS-TPD-0650FNFAGU-L; 10 Year Warranty | I’m not running GPU workloads. If I were, I may have gone for a higher Watt PSU |
| Motherboard | 1 | AsrockRack SIENAD8-2L2T (Motherboard/CPU combo ordered from eBay) | requires PCIE to SATA card and cables. The MCIO ports do NOT support SATA drives |
| CPU | 1 | AMD EPYC 8534P (Motherboard/CPU combo ordered from eBay) | 64 Core / 127 Thread Power efficient CPU supporting 576GB of full speed DDR5 ECC memory. I built 1 system with this CPU |
| CPU Cooler | 1 | Noctua NH-D9 TR5-SP6 4U, Premium Quality Quiet 92mm CPU Cooler for AMD Threadripper (sTR5) and Epyc 8004 (SP6) | Note this comes with pre-applied thermal paste that appears to work just fine with my Holodeck deployment, keeping my CPU temp reasonable |
| Memory | 1 | NEMIX RAM 576GB (6X96GB) DDR5 4800MHZ PC5-38400 2Rx4 1.1V CL40 288-PIN ECC RDIMM Registered Server Memory KIT | |
| USB Adapter | 1 | LINKUP - USB 3.2 Gen 2 (USB 3.1) Internal Adapter 20-Pin Motherboard Header Male to Female 10Gbps for PC USB-A Ports - Outward Type - Black 24cm | This was required in order to plug in the USB 3.x port on the motherboard to the Header cables from the case. Without it, the cables/pins could be bent or damaged |
| Boot NVME | 1 | Sabrent 256GB Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 | Installed in m.2 slot 1 on Motherboard. ESXi 8+ had no issue recognizing and installing here. |
| Data NVME | 1 | HP FX900 Pro 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD 2280 Gen4 x4, Up to 7400 MB/s, 3D NAND Flash, DRAM Cache, High-Performance Storage Solution for Gaming and Professional Use - 4A3U1AA#ABB | Installed in m.2 slot 2 on motherboard |
| Quad NVMe | 1 | COMeap Quad NVMe PCIe Adapter M.2 NVMe SSD to PCI-e 4.0 3.0 x16 Card with Individual LED Indicator Heat Sink Support 2230 2242 2260 2280 NVMe SSD (PCI-e Bifurcation Required) | Bios PCIE Bifurcation set, all 4 of my 4TB NVMe drives recognized without issue |
| 4TB NVMe | 4 | HP FX900 Pro 4TB M.2 NVMe SSD 2280 Gen4 x4, Up to 7400 MB/s, 3D NAND Flash, DRAM Cache, High-Performance Storage Solution for Gaming and Professional Use - 4A3U2AA#ABB | Provides plenty of FLASH storage for Holodeck deployment. |
| PCIE to SATA | 1 | quad 10GTek PCIE to 4 SFF-8643 ports | BIOS Bifurcation setting required. provides support for up to 16 SATA drives. Placed one in my 32 core build for TrueNAS Scale VM storage provider. Placed other in my 64c build for the SSD drives |
| SFF-8643 Cables | 1 | SFF-8643 to 4X SATA Cables (ordered 4x of these) | These plug-in to the PCIE card. Each one supports 4 SATA disks SSD/HDD |
| 4TB SSD Drives | 2 | Fikwot FX815 4TB SSD 3D NAND 2.5" SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - 6 Gb/s, Up to 560 MB/s for Laptop and Desktop Updating -SSD Hard Drive | SSD Storage for Persistent VMs. |
Home Server/NAS
- Build Cost: $6,400 USD
- Host OS: ESXi 8.0u3
- 32 Cores/64 Threads
- 384GB Memory
- 2TB NVMe Storage
- 16TB SSD Storage
- 128TB Raw HDD Storage (PassThrough to TrueNAS for NFS, iSCSI, S3, etc…)
- NAS VM: TrueNAS Scale
- Container Manager(s): Portainer, PhotonOS, Ubuntu
| Part | Qty | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Case | 1 | Antec Sonata | VERY quiet mid-tower case recycled from my old lab build. Case doesn’t have USB 3.x header/cables so no Adapter bought for this build |
| Power | 1 | Thermaltake Toughpower GF A3 650W 80+ Gold Full Modular SLI/Crossfile Ready ATX 3.0 Standard Power Supply; PCIe Gen.5 300W 12VHPWR Connector Included; PS-TPD-0650FNFAGU-L; 10 Year Warranty | I’m not running GPU workloads. If I were, I may have gone for a higher Watt PSU |
| Motherboard | 1 | AsrockRack SIENAD8-2L2T (Motherboard/CPU combo ordered from eBay) | requires PCIE to SATA card and cables. The MCIO ports do NOT support SATA drives |
| CPU | 1 | AMD EPYC 8324P (Motherboard/CPU combo ordered from eBay) | 32 Core / 64 Thread Power efficient CPU supporting 576GB of full speed DDR5 ECC memory. I built 1 system with this CPU |
| CPU Cooler | 1 | Noctua NH-D9 TR5-SP6 4U, Premium Quality Quiet 92mm CPU Cooler for AMD Threadripper (sTR5) and Epyc 8004 (SP6) | Note this comes with pre-applied thermal paste that appears to work just fine with my Holodeck deployment, keeping my CPU temp reasonable |
| Memory | 1 | NEMIX RAM 384GB (4X96GB) DDR5 4800MHZ PC5-38400 2Rx4 1.1V CL40 288-PIN ECC RDIMM Registered Server Memory KIT | |
| Boot NVME | 1 | Sabrent 256GB Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 | Installed in m.2 slot 1 on Motherboard. ESXi 8+ had no issue recognizing and installing here. |
| Data NVME | 1 | HP FX900 Pro 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD 2280 Gen4 x4, Up to 7400 MB/s, 3D NAND Flash, DRAM Cache, High-Performance Storage Solution for Gaming and Professional Use - 4A3U1AA#ABB | Installed in m.2 slot 2 on motherboard |
| PCIE to SATA | 1 | quad 10GTek PCIE to 4 SFF-8643 ports | BIOS Bifurcation setting required. provides support for up to 16 SATA drives. Placed one in my 32 core build for TrueNAS Scale VM storage provider. Placed other in my 64c build for the SSD drives |
| SFF-8643 Cables | 3 | SFF-8643 to 4X SATA Cables (ordered 4x of these) | These plug-in to the PCIE card. Each one supports 4 SATA disks SSD/HDD |
| SSD Bay | 1 | ICY DOCK 6 Bay 2.5” SATA HDD / SSD Hot Swap Tool-Less Backplane Enclosure with Dual Cooling Fan for 5.25” Bay - ExpressCage MB326SP-B | can support up to 6 SSD SATA disks. Be careful to NOT overtighten the mounting screws |
| 4TB SSD Drives | 4 | Fikwot FX815 4TB SSD 3D NAND 2.5" SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - 6 Gb/s, Up to 560 MB/s for Laptop and Desktop Updating -SSD Hard Drive | Can be installed in IcyDock or inside the case. |
| 16TB NAS Drives | 8 | Seagate Exos X18 16TB 3.5” SATA drive ST16000NM000J | Installed these in the 32 Core host for use by TrueNAS Scale |
| Power Extension | 1 | SinLoon IDE to SATA Power Splitter Cable, LP4 4 Pin Male to 5 SATA Female Power Extension Hard Drive Cable,for HDD SSD and Optical Drives 18AWG-24cm | I needed this in the 32Core system due to the number of SATA devices 8XHDD and the 2 plugs of the IcyDock. |
