Hey all, have been looking around the net for a place where I can get decent advice on a lab setup and tech-forums appears to be the solution. I hope you can all help a new member with some advice
I'm in the process of moving house and when we're setup there I want to get myself a proper lab setup for help with my future certs and learning new technologies. I've been asked by my employer to tackle the Hyper-V certs and then move on to the System Centre varieties (SCCM, SCOM, etc) and whilst my laptop has sufficed in the past (running vmware) the hyper-v MS Press Book requires a complete setup in order to get the most from it.
Whilst I could probably do this without having to do the exercises I want to get the most from my studies and there are things I could do in my own lab that I couldn't do on the work domain.
My question boils down to this; I want to get a 2 machines with the specs listed below, would I be better off building them myself or just buying them online? If anyone has a similiar lab setup that they use for studying then any other advice would be greatly appreciated.
Specs required for both machines;
x64 Virtualization compatible CPU (e.g. Intel-VT or AMD-V)
DEP Capable CPU (for Hyper-V)
4 GB RAM (with the possibility of upgrading in the future)
2 x HDDs (want to RAID 1 them just incase so atleast 500GB)
RAID Controller
DVD Drive
2 x NICs (1 PCI, 1 on board)
If I were to build it myself then are there any suggestion on a MB and CPU? I'm not fussed about the speed of the CPU as I'm hardly going to max them and if I did cause slow-down it's not a production environment so isn't going to matter all that much.
Nor am I fussed whether it be Intel or AMD, am thinking possibly the latter as last time I built myself a PC (about 3 years ago) AMD were cheaper though arguably not as good as their intel counterparts.
The most important part in all of this though is of course; the budget. I'm hoping to get some funding from my employer though I'd expect my budget is going to be in the region of £800 - £1000 for the lot (i.e. Up to £500 per machine).
I'm sure this is do-able but was hoping to get advice from those who may have a similiar setup or words of warning when it comes to this kind of thing.
Any advice is greatly appreciated
I'm in the process of moving house and when we're setup there I want to get myself a proper lab setup for help with my future certs and learning new technologies. I've been asked by my employer to tackle the Hyper-V certs and then move on to the System Centre varieties (SCCM, SCOM, etc) and whilst my laptop has sufficed in the past (running vmware) the hyper-v MS Press Book requires a complete setup in order to get the most from it.
Whilst I could probably do this without having to do the exercises I want to get the most from my studies and there are things I could do in my own lab that I couldn't do on the work domain.
My question boils down to this; I want to get a 2 machines with the specs listed below, would I be better off building them myself or just buying them online? If anyone has a similiar lab setup that they use for studying then any other advice would be greatly appreciated.
Specs required for both machines;
x64 Virtualization compatible CPU (e.g. Intel-VT or AMD-V)
DEP Capable CPU (for Hyper-V)
4 GB RAM (with the possibility of upgrading in the future)
2 x HDDs (want to RAID 1 them just incase so atleast 500GB)
RAID Controller
DVD Drive
2 x NICs (1 PCI, 1 on board)
If I were to build it myself then are there any suggestion on a MB and CPU? I'm not fussed about the speed of the CPU as I'm hardly going to max them and if I did cause slow-down it's not a production environment so isn't going to matter all that much.
Nor am I fussed whether it be Intel or AMD, am thinking possibly the latter as last time I built myself a PC (about 3 years ago) AMD were cheaper though arguably not as good as their intel counterparts.
The most important part in all of this though is of course; the budget. I'm hoping to get some funding from my employer though I'd expect my budget is going to be in the region of £800 - £1000 for the lot (i.e. Up to £500 per machine).
I'm sure this is do-able but was hoping to get advice from those who may have a similiar setup or words of warning when it comes to this kind of thing.
Any advice is greatly appreciated