Final lab setup mid-2019 to now

Last year, I must have got a bit excited with the new gear I was buying, and I never ended  up posting my final CONFIG, here it is!

3x HP EliteDesk 800 G3’s (product page)

Each of the HP Elitedesk 800 G3s contains the following hardware:

• Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6500 CPU @ 3.20GHz
• 4x 16 GB RAM for 64 GB ram total
• Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB SSD (vSAN capacity)
• Samsung 970 EVO 1 TB NVM type SSD (vSAN caching)
• Intel NIC quad card I350T4V2BLK
• Intel X520-DA2 (82599) dual head 10 GB NIC

Connecting the 3 computers is a MikrotikCRS309-1G-8S+IN 8 port 10 GB switch

Originally, I’d installed VMware esxi 6.7 U3 on each of them, but have upgraded all 3 to version 7 as of the spring of 2020

If I was to do it all over again, I’d go AMD Zen 3, but buying the used Intel-based kit from HP at the time made sense for the following reasons:

• Each unit supports intel vPro for lights out management (just ensure you put in secure settings!)
• 4x DDR4 DIMMS for 64 GB max
• 4x PCI express, 1x PCI express x16
• Great BIOS
• Quiet
• Very compact/quiet and ez to work with for upgrades
• As these are common business desktops that are now off-lease at many business, they can be purchased for as low as $300 USD from eBay