virtual pc

[330T]

For the last year or so i've been moving all my work servers to Virtual Servers, and that got me thinking about home networks and the ability to move everything to Virtual PCs. 

The first few attempts did not go well mostly due to the lack of "free" software to do what i needed it to do.  I broke down and purchased a VMware license for my home and now have everything running on two computers, and one iscsi nas.

One of the Computers is my Win7 box for gaming and web surfing. the other Computer is a server running ESXi 64, and on it I have 13 different servers running.  Some are sandbox servers but most are my "production" servers such as win home server, web server, db server, exchange, two media PCs, game servers, file server, and media server. 

The real issue became that i tend to out grow my storage and always have to build another file server and move all my data to the new file server.  I found a great fix.  Its a little OS called UnRAID.  Google it for more info but you install it on a usb drive boot it and then add drives to a NAS then as things fill up you just add new drive and it extends your shares to that new drive.  No need to always have to build new servers and move data around. 

So anyone of you who run a home network and are sick of dealing with several physical computers look into moving them to Virtual servers its saving me tons of space, power, noise, and frustration.

I will bring my ESXi server to the next lan.  Its currently has about 8 game servers setup on it.

[Fax]

This is pure win.
We have only two physical computers set up in our home (1 for each of us) and everything else is virtual and runs like a champ.

[s1deout]

you should check out XenSever from Citrix for Virtual server use. 

Compared to VMWare - it is a cleaner install as it boots to Linux and has a small footprint. Plus the Xencenter management console is free and is more lag free than using the VM console.

Xenserver has more features than the free VM as well.

You are using ESXi which is not free like Xenserver i am pretty sure.

[330T]

you should check out XenSever from Citrix for Virtual server use. 

Compared to VMWare - it is a cleaner install as it boots to Linux and has a small footprint. Plus the Xencenter management console is free and is more lag free than using the VM console.

Xenserver has more features than the free VM as well.

You are using ESXi which is not free like Xenserver i am pretty sure.

No ESXi is not free, but i have a corp license, so I have a install for all my servers at work and home.  I've run Xenserver (or a clone) in the past and it is very capable.  the great thing about VMware is the ability to use the Global Manager to Manage all my ESXi servers from a single interface and move Vservers from one physical box to another if issues come up.

But you are right, for a average user, an opensorce project such as Xenserver is a great product.