I used to run a few servers in my basement back in the day… consolidated everything over time to less and less hardware because of higher and higher electricity bills. Today only thing running in my basement is a NAS and a small PI cluster. I run everything else, including my learning projects, in the cloud and on my workstation. It’s cheaper this way. Before you buy old, but still very capable and affordable server, you should consider how much electricity this “bad boy” will consume over time. Add other hardware power consumption costs too, like network switches, ups etc and don’t forget maintenance costs. Things do break down or wear out (fans, batteries, …) over time. But still… it is a great learning experience to own one of these :)

I watch these videos all the time. I just started working in IT after graduating in software development and your videos get me excited to build a home/work lab. What's crazy is I actually bought a google search appliance (R710) about a month ago and have installed a passbolt instance and bookstack. Love your videos man, keep it up!

Thanks a lot for this tutorial. I'm planning a project using bare metal virtualization, but I'm a complete newbie on ESXi. Still reading a lot, but your video already helped me tremendously.

Thanks very much mate, I'm returning to IT after a 10 year detour and cannot say how much I just _LOVE_ how accessible nearly everything is. I'm just as excited as you are :-) I bought an old cisco switch 2nd hand and a few VERY HEAVY old dell servers and have been able to get back in the groove for very little $$$. As a couple of other people have commented managing frustration is the difference between senior and junior professionals. I remember as a kid typing game listings into my Atari 400 from magazines and getting so so so irrationally frustrated when I typed them in wrong I'd spend 10 times as long getting them working than I should have (yep, old guy here) The way you caught yourself from putting off settting the static IP caught my eye. You weren't happy, took a breath and did it because you knew it was the right thing even though you wanted to just 'get it done' Massive respect, I hope the channel is working out for you, I'm finding it really valuable.

I remember having PowerEdge 2950 in my attic ... Hearing this thing taking off at middle of the night and whole wooden construction resonating with sound of this server. Scary and unforgettable

Just upgraded my 2 server lab to 7u2, had to upgrade my install drive to NVMe from SD due to the read/write requirements for 7. So far running great. Thanks for the video!!

Be cautious when installing vSphere 6.7 in R710. This model comes in two different variation. One comes with Xeon 55XX process and the other comes with Intel Xeon 56XX. Only R710 with Xeon 56XX supports 6.7. The other support up to 6.5 only.

ESXi is no longer free anymore as of a week ago 😢

this kind of channel is what kids need to get into IT or at least spark something into them. fun looking functional experiments, much respect Chuck!

You make IT easy Chuck... Thanks for inspiring me, all the times I see your videos it foster me to be the best version of myself in the IT field. Greetings from Mozambique

I greatly appreciate the video and commentary. I forget how easy it can be to create your own lab and using esxi is great way to turn old hardware into something useful again.

Just got given a Dell PowerEdge T320 - Ran through all the steps and now have a functioning ubuntu webserver - THANKS CHUCK! love your videos and info, watched almost all your videos!

Such great timing, Im studying my CCNA but I bought a server a week ago for some extra learning and for fun

Hehe we've all been there 😉 mad respect for showing the struggles. This is the real experience

This is one of the most entertaing and fun ways to learn network stuff I have ever seen. Thank you very much for the effort and for great content.

At the end of the RAID configuration where you are selecting where to install ESXi, I'd recommend having another storage device (like an SD card or second USB drive) attached to become the install location for VMware! Scary stuff can happen, like losing all your VMs and data, if you have a datastore (where VMs live) sharing the same storage as the "ESXi OS". Many enterprise servers have a place to load a USB drive or SD card for this very task. If all else fails, carving a slice out of the RAID to make a smaller logical drive is another option. Love seeing ESXi stuff on the channel and it is a great way to introduce folks to the IT ecosystem monstrosity that is VMware!

I'm a System Admin and I love watching your videos as a brief simple refreshers. You don't install ESXi every day and it helps to be reminded of what the menus and configuration settings are :)

Chuck, thank you for this video, 8 months ago when I originally saw this you inspired me to also buy a r710. Officially starting my home lab journey. I bought by first server the next day. As of today, I just bought my 6th server and my energy bill hasn't been any thick and inconclusively, my wallet the slimmest it's been since high school. I spend hours and hours pulling out my hair dealing with dell drivers and dreadfully idrac. Screaming cuss words to the sky, dealing with docker issues. Learned that 10gb networking is only as fast as your array's slowest drive. So everything in my house has SSD's even the microwave. Finally, my friends haven't seen me in months, they think I am either in drugs or have been kidnapped. I haven't even seen my dog in about a week. My cats moved out and are living in their own apartment now. thank you again chuck. I just bought a r730xd.......the adventure contiues

Bro your housing community is beautiful, love texas. Those pants are legendary too my guy. My switches run at 66Db so when they boot up and my buddies are at my house they freak out over the turbine sounds in my server room lol. Love your videos, love your tutorials, you are a legendary teacher. God bless you and your family brother, thank you for all you do and your awesome positivity and patience when making these videos for us. One love to you and all my IT brothers and sisters.

Just bought an R620 and this was a fantastic walkthrought to get me up and running!! Thank you.

I actually use a external 240G SSD with ventoy for my ISOs ... You just have to install ventoy on it(or a normal USB would although be fine) and then you just copy all your iso files on there and can install them on any device you want. So you only have to use one drive for every ISO you could want:D

I got R710 too with Dual X5660's, very good server, maybe little power hungry for the performance. But iDRAC6 Advanced is really nice even though it requires Java for console access. 2 x Xeon 5660. 96Gb DDR3 RAM, 6x8TB Disks connected to IBM1015 HBA, 2x 2TB NVME SSD with Addapters

Bought an R710 beginning of this year for $3 (local FB dollar auction) for my first HomeLab setup. Had several issues getting this thing going and finally started back at it today. After hours of issues again, FINALLY found this video and now have Ubuntu 24.04 Desktop and Server loaded. Now to start diving deeper! Thanks!

love your videos, i didn't need the extra hardware, just booted the server from cifs and used the idrac(alot quieter with the server in a different room aswell) enjoyed sippin the coffee while it setup thanks for another great video

Owww what an amazing coincidence!! I'm just reading about VSphere and ESXI and start playing with them today❤️❤️

Awe man! This video brings back some old memories from 2009. Seems like the setup has not changed one bit. We migrated from Oracle Virtual Iron to VMware 5.0 on two Dell R910's combo'ed with a 24TB Compellent SAN with some brocade 6gb fiber channel cards. We were able to toss out about 25 IBM 365 servers and an IBM 5TB ESS Shark. Tons of $$$ saved.

This is awesome stuff and very helpful...I just bought myself a bunch of network devices and an ML350 G6 with ESXi installed, so this episode was exactly what I needed to get up and running. Any chance you might consider doing a vid on how to use Ansible to create a bunch of VMs on this kind of set-up? Great content as ever, many thanks dude 👍

Excellent video Chuck. Much appreciated. I actually just scooped one of these R710's off of eBay and I'm anxiously awaiting it's arrival. Keep up the good work sir. As a bonus, Frech press arrives today as well :D

Please keep on with the series phyton,😭 i'm so excited with ep 3

Old builds like this are what individual lab learning is founded on. Thanks for showing that you don't need some crazy $5k setup. Sincerely, the R510 gang 😎

Chuck, Thank you for being you and not changing to what others think. Inspire and show others they can achieve!, Loving the content!

Must say I love your content since you make it like anyone can do it... Hey got me searching for a server, BUT, I find your creativity even better, merging advertising with the content. I mean the VGA run was EPIC!!!. PS hope that was fresh brew coffee. hehe

I have found in my travels with used servers, the RAID batteries are usually toast on the HP servers, like the G7, and unfortunately any new RAID batteries you’ll buy have a born on date that’s +5 years or more, this will cause performance issues on the drives. I’ve gotten creative with a soldering gun and new batteries but in the end it’s just easier and less of a headache to buy newer, G9 for example. I spent a lot of time installing and configuring my lab, nothing worse than loosing all that hard work (:

Govdeals. Years ago I was working low man at a IT shop. They had an old server and I set it up with ESXi. I setup vSphere and a few VMs. The boss walked by and took a doubletake. He thought I hacked into the server farm. I pointed to the server on the bench. He called me into his office. I skipped 3 positions. He caught heat over it but he stuck to his guns and I did 8 years tier 3 support. I pulled all the stock fans from my home server. Bought all low noise fans and they helped.

Just recently bought a used Dell R710 for virtualization, and I absolutely love it!

Awesome video mann, you helped me out with my new job ❤ btw, if you buy something that is in one of those plastic packages like a VGA cable. To open it just squeeze the package together and it will open almost on it's own. It's a life hack i did not know untill i was 30!

Using these for years. My favorite thing with virtualized platforms is creating two separate networks so replication and backups happen on a secure lan so everything is quickly recoverable from potential ransomware and hackers.

A few notes from a long time sysadmin: a) when handling $$$ worth of hardware you might want to consider using ESP protection (i.e. a grounded wristband) while installing (or removing) parts. Yes you can do it without, been there, done that - but better be safe than sorry and if you chuck (SCNR) out some more bucks for a wristband and maybe an antistatic mat, it won't hurt. b) like someone mentioned below before, these rack machines all support some sort of lights out management (ILO) nowadays. This is really useful to configure these machines without having to walk up to them, provided the network connection and the ILO module work correctly, So, as a fallback, keep that monitor and keyboard (and even a mouse) around ;-) c) these bad boys are nice, no questions asked. I'd love to stack some of them in my basement, too - but I don't. Why? Two words: environmental concerns. Bad boys like these usually have PSUs in the range of 500 Watts or more, 750 or 1K, depending on the amount of RAM, CPUs and / or HDDs you use are not uncommon - and since it's enterprise hardware, more often than not there are two (or even more) PSUs in the chassis so you can easily reach power levels of >1KW under load. That's in the range of a large hoover or stove burning away 24/7. So you also might want to watch your power lines, your average 10A or 16A household fuses won't support too many of these monsters on one power line so soon you'll be thinking 3-phase energy lines in your basement. Another topic is noise and heat. These beasts tend to get warm when running and I mean really warm - after all, all this energy pumped in there has to go somewhere and a good part of that is heat. To battle that, they don't employ flimsy PC fans and they're not those nice, silent, Noctua types either - "screaming jets" is a more accurate description. Now of course, if they're not under too much load, they won't run at full speed - but servers usually are still noisier than your average desktop PC. And you can save on your hair dryer, too, just sit a while behind the server after showering and soon you're all dry. So yes, having one or some more of these bad boys is surely nice - but there's a few things to consider, before stacking them in your living room - the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) of these beasts is also not very high ;-)

I simple love your videos man, you are very talented and funny at the same time, which makes me enjoy learning from you even more. A big hug from Mozambique 🇲🇿

I love your channel, I love geeking out on this stuff and you make it fun and entertaining! Should be building my own networking setup for my small business soon because how well you explain things.

You can install ESXI on a thumb drive that plugs internally and use that as the boot drive. That will save a little disk space on the drives where you are putting your vm’s.

Hi Chuck, When I started learning IT, I started watching your videos.... Now I'm a server admin, and you also contributed to my career....

Chuck you are da man I bought the striped pants AND the server and now I feel so amazing. Thank you

Great video for setting up a new esxi host In a home lab , good refresher for the daily work grind too 😂 . Curious as to why chuck didn't use the Dell Custom ESXI image they provide for poweredge servers . It has all the needed nic drivers and more . Runs way more stable and has the same compatible version.

Hey chuck whenever you have the time please continue with the python series, best regards from dominican republic !!

Chuck, you are the best!! you always try the things I can't get to try and you always walk us thru... you are just amazing teacher. Thank you so much

This video is exactly what I was looking for since a long time... Being a Network guy, I had no clue on how to go about it!! thanks Chuck!!!

Just bought my first server (PowerEdge R710). Thanks for the advice! I got it mainly so I could run and learn on about 10 different OSs (not all running at the same time, obviously). If I also wanted to have some central storage for the whole family, would I need a different server for that since I will be running vMWare Sphere? Could I also be running NAS at the same time on the same server? Thanks for any advice anyone might have on this.

I'm already well versed in running a home lab with VMware esxi. This is an excellent video for a beginner to get up and running.

Why was this LITERALLY me a month ago. Used R610, tried vpshere 7.0.... failed.. Found out about the 6.7 driver issue and said Chuck it, I'll do it later. You've motivated me to do it NOW. Time for the jet to take off!! The raid config in the bios tripped me up too. I swear, your journey was just like mine. Thanks for posting this!!!

I could watch your videos all day and never get bored even for a sec. This is the best.... informative and energetic.

Need to run to the Data Center? You’ll need some super nerdy shoes from Vessi: ntck.co/vessi (Use code: chuck to get $25 off your order!) 0:00 ⏩ Intro 2:13 ⏩ What You’ll Need 3:53 ⏩ Installing VMware 8:10 ⏩ Raid Configuration 9:40 ⏩ Launching ESXi 6.7 (Vsphere) 11:33 ⏩ Setting Static IP 13:44 ⏩ Setting up VMware 15:51 ⏩ Booting up VMware I bought a new (old) server to add to my lab!! Buying an old Dell PowerEdge Server or an HP Proliant is the best thing you can do to beef up your lab and start learning. In this video, I walk you through how I set it up with VMware ESXi 6.7 (Vsphere) as the hypervisor. Stuff from the video --------------------------------------------------- Buy my server: geni.us/nx2do (12-Core 64GB RAM 12TB Raid PowerEdge R710) (affiliate) Flash Drive: geni.us/DJdC

Unfortunately, the R710 has aged out as far as ESXi is concerned. It should run 6.7 fine, but that's about as far as you can go. I ditched mine over a year ago in favor of an R720 (which was added to a rack mount converted T620, bought new). The Dells are great machines. You'll most likely need to build your own disc of firmware updates for the R710 using Dell Repository Manager. If your firmware is way behind, there are caveats to bringing it all up-to-date too fast, in too few steps. You'll figure it out. Good luck with it!

Chuck, you got the coolest videos! Thank you! This was a lot of help for my home project that I started down.

You have resparked my interest in learning again. I have been sitting on my free.99 dell r610. Today I mayhave went and did something good and stupid and the same time. I got an hp proliant dl 360 off of the big box we'd site. I am also taking the plunge in completing my lab. I have enough equipment to get started. 3 3650s a cusco 2800 router and a Cisco ASA 5540. All free.99. Thank you. Oh and I finally renewed my domain. Keepem commin.

Well, its much smaller that the Sunfire/Netra 1280s that I used to test at SUN. Try lifting one of those onto the desk and you'll break the desk, assuming your back didn't give out first.

Firstly great video. It was like deja- Vu watching it. I ran into those exact same issues. The only thing missing was the three days it took to upgrade the server bios. Spoiler Alert. The bios upgrade docs weren’t very good.

Love the absolute unfiltered sound! The subversive shoe commercial was money also! Great series

My dad and I bought 3 servers just for fun lol. we love messing around with servers and computers. I turned my old gaming PC into a NAS with a disk array and I get 5TB with Gb speeds

If I dont remember incorrectly, there's something about an “ allowLegacyCPU=true” that can be edited in the config somewhere. Dont remember it all precisely, but am pretty sure that this CAN in fact be run with older hardware :)

At this point in time, the 720 is about the oldest system I'd recommend, not even from a compatibility standpoint, but just from a performance per dollar standpoint.

I wish you had any idea how much this helped. Got an HP Proliant DL360 G5 from a friend and I had almost given up on using a Type 1 hypervisor. Thank you so so much.

Wow, Chuck what an amazing video. Humorous and educational. I love your channel. Thank you so much for all the great content!

I know I'd be like a really big project but you should consider a ESXi vs Proxmox video since I always see content mostly for Proxmox but IRL most deployments I see are ESXi based.

How come you installed esxi onto the raid volume and not the USB key? The installer loads into ram, you can install straight onto the same USB key no problem.

I have a T620 Dell Server (wife shot down the rack idea) up in my office/homelab. Rather than installing ESXi on the hard drives I spent an extra $20 for the internal dual MicroSD card reader and have ESXi installed and running there. Runs great and leaves the hard drives for all my virtual machines.

built my first server for my home lab thanks to you. thanks for the vid!

I'm running proxmox on my HPE proliant gen 8 It's been solid as a rock! - Took a while to work out how to get it to run ZFS instead of hardware raid, but once done, it's been fantastic

If you've got three PowerEdge servers running ESXi, you have a vCenter Server to manage them, yes?

Great video as always Chuck. Great work and tutorial!

Watching this video in 2024 after the free vmware licenses got axed. Really bad time to want to setup a virtualization server. What are our options? What would you do now if you don't have a license?

*I don't get any of the problems when I spin up a fresh server on AWS & AZURE 😐😁👍*

Thanks Chuck. I was thinking of buying one of these Dell servers. Thanks for the video tutorial. This really helped me make a decision to go ahead and purchase one on Ebay. Thanks again. You are awesome..

I'm running a PowerEdge R540 with ESXi 7, runs like a dream, along with a ML350 G10! Got a beefy server room, but here in the UK electric is expensive.

1:49 the moment you consider buying a cheap server and then you realize that you live in Brazil :(

You are the best teacher ever ,you inspired me and make fall in love with cybersecurity and unethical hacking Sorry...😇

I have an R710 that I used in my old office. I haven't touched it in 6 years, but it's a beast ( dual 3.8 GHZ Zeons, 48 gigs of Ram, 12 gigabit nics, etc. I've been exploring what to do with it in my spare time ( I just retired) and I couldn't decide whether to go with Widows server or VMWare. Loved this video; so VMWare it is! Any suggestions or ideas as to what projects I should undertake would be welcome. For now I have to acquire some larger SAS drives since it has five 146 gig drives right now. Great video. Inspiring!

I like your enthusiasm very much, you make the video more interesting and fun.😊

You’re basically working your way to a network chuck data centre 😂

Link takes you to version 7.0 now :(

Just ordered a server, will be installing ESXi, thanks for the tutorial!

I'm trying to absorb everything in this realm quickly to make some business decisions. Thanks for all the helpful information you share.

You can still install ESXi 7 in old hardware. I have a proliant dl380 G7 running with ESXi 7. During installation you need to press SHIFT + O (During the first 3 seconds I think) and type in "allowLegacyCPU=true", and you will be able to install ESXi 7. However, you may run into compatibility issues later on, specially if you are using for example a Network card, or PCIe-Nvme, etc.

Hey NetworkChuck, are you still going to continue your Python course? So far, I love it!

Well done Bro Chuck...I am really inspired!!! I love the sense of humor you add to the tutorials 😂😂

Thank you for this video. It really got me on the right track. I installed VMware ESXi using your instructions. I even bought the server you suggested. It works great and i'm learning......FAST! Again, thanks bruh!!👍😄

"I bought a new (used) server"...... But, yeah, it can be the least expensive way to go. Just keep in mind that those bad boys suck up some juice (power), especially the older ones. My electric bill went up over $20 with an Enterprise server...... This is the reason I opted to build my new home server using home products running AMD. P.S. They are also super loud. So, you need a closet or a basement to run it in. Trust me, you don't want an enterprise server humming in your living room.... I also opted to go away from vmWare, when I did my upgrade. Licensing is a b*tch, if you want all the cool bells and whistles. Running hyper-V is actually less expensive, given you can get a datacenter license, from one of the online auction sites, fairly cheaply. I'm more inclined to setup Server 2019 with hyper-v, for a home setup, than vmWare....just my 2 cents, though.

I have been researching all this while for digital asset investment and I found bitcoin to be the most profiting of them all, I am definitely bouncing on the opportunity, thank you so much.

I have had a server sitting in my room for years and could not find a video to help me set it up until this one thank you so much

Love that you promote used hardware, thats dope

Welp... this didn't age well 😞

R710? Come on, whilst I commend your recycling, that thing is an antique, and extremely inefficient, given your audience it's signalling R710s are great - yet the running costs will be more that an upgrade to to an x20 or x30, which are not only more efficient, but significantly more powerful.

I picked up dl360p gen8 for $100 bucks to do my network school project. Following your video I was able to download/install/authenticate upload everything in about 1 hour, now installing Ubuntu from my desktop! ... thanks ironing out all the bugs so my Sunday morning was stress free.

Love your videos man, very informative with a great sense of humour.

GOOD INFORMATION. LOVE THE ENERGY AND THE SIMPLICITY OF YOUR VIDS. EASY TO LEARN FROM

Thank You so much after searching for almost a day came across your video i thought when i bought two hp proLiant dl360 g7's that i just wasted my money and couldn't use them well you brought them back to life again thank you 🙂

Hey Chuck... really enjoy your videos... fun to watch and very instructive... thanks!

And this setup makes me appreciate my HPE DL20 with iLo5 even more.... headed setups are so early 2000's ....

Hey, You can actually run ESXI 7.0 on the R710, All you have to do is upon boot of the ESXI installer starts press Shift + O and then you will see runweasel.... and after that, you have to put allowLegacyCPU=true. you will still see the warning message during install but it will let you continue. You may have an issue with your 10 gig nic though.

I used to run my homeserver just fine on dell 7559 with 16GB and I recently (2 months) got an R720xd which I really enjoy but for some reason, I am so eager to buy a new one that I can use to build a NAS. I am now impatient. I've been wanting to do this since my days in school studying engineering. I keep watching your videos and just hoping I would be able to do if even half of what you do. I like to play with hardware so damn much but for now, I'm a software developer.