Need advice of best CPU to use for cheap performing home lab

[neopaladine]

I'm building a cheap home lab that will serve for various software/OS virtual environment testing including eventually the Starwind HA capabilities.
I have one server built using two Intel E5507 CPU's on an ASUS Z8NA-D6C with 48GB RAM and a simple RAID1 array since I'll direct all VM Hosts/VM's to the iSCSI SAN.
This server will have Windows 7 Pro 64Bit loaded with VMWare Workstation 8 allowing me to create different VMware or Hyper-V test environments.
I want to test Starwind using the free version first on a W2k8 server core or Hyper-V base as a dedicated iSCSI SAN box but because of the CPU minimums my existing hardware won't suffice.
I'll build one of these SAN boxes then after testing some config's build another later to test the HA capabilities via the full working trial version.
This won't be a production environment but I will have some RAID 10 array space specifically set aside for personal hosting of music, pictures and movies, dedicated to the Win7 OS for Media Center and XBox 360 feed fun stuff.
My existing CPU based server that I was going to use is the old Xeon dualcore E3110 CPU based and have been told this would be bad performance even in a testing/home stuff environment using Starwind.

What do you all think about this CPU as the processor base of the Starwind enabled iSCSI San(s):
AMD Opteron 6128 Magny-Cours 2.0GHz 8 Core - Newegg link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819105266
vs and Intel alternative at a higher price...?

Thanks

[Anatoly (staff)]

Welcome on board sir!:)

Maybe this is just my opinion, but I would prefer using Intels hardware - on my experince people were always achieving prety good and reliable results.
Also, the hardware requirement pretty much depends on the load that machine/system will expect. If you will have only 1 Ubuntu desktop VM that will host on StarWind device, then this CPU is way too powerful, but if you will have 1000 of them, then you need the better CPU. I think you get the idea.
And, just for your information, we have System Requirements, that you always can find by using the link below:
http://www.starwindsoftware.com/system-requirements

I hope it was helpful.

[neopaladine]

So, if I'm primarily only running my Windows 7 64Bit OS against the Starwind iSCSI SAN for the personal fun stuff then even my old Xeon E3110 CPU would likely suffice...
BUT, when I spool up VMWare Workstation 8 and the multiple ESXi5 Host VM's and Hyper-V VM's and their subsequent child VM's that may be a mixture of W2K8 and other server/desktop OS's then the CPU demands in this test environment will skyrocket and require the larger core per socket CPU base then...
Well, I hear you on the Intel vs AMD idea but when the closest Intel CPU price is almost twice what this 8 core AMD is (not to mention the motherboard cost for the Intel vs AMD) then it's hard to justify the extra exspense on Intel... if I was to go for the AMD mentioned above then do you all think that the GHz lever per core will suffice for the testing environment I've exampled, iSCSI CPU demands wise?

[anton (staff)]

StarWind is a memory (used for cache) and not a CPU pig. We don't need that much cycles to handle I/O and calculate hash checksums for dedupe. So pretty much everything you can get these days should be fine.

P.S. It makes a whole lot of difference when you run highly available configuration and Native SAN with Hyper-V (StarWind and Hyper-V share the same hardware) but it's not your case.

So, if I'm primarily only running my Windows 7 64Bit OS against the Starwind iSCSI SAN for the personal fun stuff then even my old Xeon E3110 CPU would likely suffice...
BUT, when I spool up VMWare Workstation 8 and the multiple ESXi5 Host VM's and Hyper-V VM's and their subsequent child VM's that may be a mixture of W2K8 and other server/desktop OS's then the CPU demands in this test environment will skyrocket and require the larger core per socket CPU base then...
Well, I hear you on the Intel vs AMD idea but when the closest Intel CPU price is almost twice what this 8 core AMD is (not to mention the motherboard cost for the Intel vs AMD) then it's hard to justify the extra exspense on Intel... if I was to go for the AMD mentioned above then do you all think that the GHz lever per core will suffice for the testing environment I've exampled, iSCSI CPU demands wise?