Yesterday, I’ve got the request to show the current state of my basement – to be more precise – he wants to see the current hardware

What you see here is far from “finished”. The HP ProCurve for example is not yet installed and also the Gateway is still on my ToDo list, but you get the idea.

The big black case is the ESXi server, the smaller silver behind that is the backup server. The rack contains the UPS, the 1U SuperMicro server and the electric wiring – and needs to get the final finish! Also, there’s a Compaq 4 Port KVM switch the CRT & keyboard are connected to that I’ve got for free from Christian.

Speaking of mess – this is the inside of the ESXi server – so much cables running through the box. But I’m sure you guys are curious to see the inside.

From top to bottom:
- LSI Controller (IT Firmware) -> connects to the HP SAS Expander via SFF-8087 cable
- LSI Controller (IR Firmware/Intel brand) -> connects the 3x 640GB via “RAID10E/IME” and is the home for the VMs as by today as the NFS was a bit to slow for my taste – or: this option is a lot faster
- HP SAS Expander -> the beast which connects up to 32 drives
- Intel Pro 1000 CT PCIe x1 NIC

The red light on the bottom right is the USB stick which is shown here. The ESXi software itself is stored there.