Build for MS exams

kavo87

Hey Guys,

Long time reader first time poster!

Looking to build a rig to help me study to get ready for MS exams i plan on doing throughout the year.I'm not looking for anything flashy hopefully something smallish and quite with the option of upgrading overtime. I don't plan on using it really for gaming only for running 6 or so virtual machine in one go to practice for the exams so gonna need plenty of ram between 12 and 16gb, then maybe some downloading and using it as bit of a media center so would like plenty of space 1tb hdd.

I want to make it wireless and maybe use remote desktop on my laptop to control it, but if needed hook it up to my tv.

Was looking more towards an AMD build and my budget would be around 600 if cheaper would be great but if needed can be pushed up.

Don't need OS and am happily opened to suggestions

Thanks for your help

Kavo87

Ps First build

deconduo

This will do you fine. You can bump up the CPU to a 2600k if you want, though its probably not needed. You could get a better graphics card if you wanted to do any gaming. The stock cooler will allow for some mild overclocking, but you would probably want to get a proper cooler if you want to do more than that.

Total build cost: €508.77 + €30 shipping
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1000GB, SATA II (HD103SJ) €45.14
2 x 8GB-Kit G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-10667U CL9 €37.08
Xigmatek Asgard II Midi Tower - black/black, ohne Netzteil €32.26
Antec EarthWatts EA-380D Green €40.81
Samsung SH-222AB bare schwarz SATA €16.53
ASRock P67 Pro3 (B3), Sockel 1155, ATX €83.63
Intel Core i5-2500K Box, LGA1155 €175.58
Club 3D HD5450 512MB, ATI Radeon HD5450, PCI-Express €24.36
TP-Link TL-WN851N, 300Mbps PCI-Adapter €16.30

kavo87

Thnaks deconduo

would i be better with an AMD build would i get more value for money?

think i might upgrade the graphics card to 1gb any ideas what i would go for?

Cuddlesworth

Since I run a considerable farm at home, I can be of some help.

Cpu is not important. VM's running for exams do sweet f all, any quad core can run 20 VM's doing nothing. I've seen eight running like a breeze on a dual core atom processor. Ideally you want your VM box to be doing just that, running only VM's. Use your current laptop/desktop to remote or console in over the network with the machine running ESXi or Citrix Xenserver. Both are free and a great resource.

What is important is Ram and hard drive IOPS/space. You can get away with 1gig for 2008 R2 and 512-768 for W7 clients. At the moment, I need about 9 domain controllers and about seven clients running at once. 16 gigs can easily do it.

Hard-drives are the largest issue. During powered on use a number of VM's can use a single normal drive. Unfortunately this becomes a issue if you try to do anything hard-drive intensive on any more then one machine at once. Like turning 1 off or on(2 minutes) or turning 2 off or on(10-20 minutes). You get the picture?

To give you a example.

I have a Raid5 with a 64mb Dell Cerc 1.5 card running six 10k 80gig raptors. I also have a 15k 128gig SAS drive, a 10k 320gig SAS drive, a 750gig F3 and a early gen 128gig SSD. I can really use two VM's for any of the single drives(SAS and 750gig). The SSD can handle at least five, but storage becomes a issue as even with thin provisioning server installs average around 17 gigs including updates. The raid array can happily handle around five, but can do up 10 so far if needed without any huge issues.

So if you can afford it, a New high capacity SSD is well worth the investment, with a larger raid 1 array for backup and storage.

So if you really want a usable machine for study drop the idea of a media centre pc as well, cheap out on the cpu and gfx, drop the wi-fi, bump up the ram and spend big money on one or two SSD's.

kavo87

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Since I run a considerable farm at home, I can be of some help.

Cpu is not important. VM's running for exams do sweet f all, any quad core can run 20 VM's doing nothing. I've seen eight running like a breeze on a dual core atom processor. Ideally you want your VM box to be doing just that, running only VM's. Use your current laptop/desktop to remote or console in over the network with the machine running ESXi or Citrix Xenserver. Both are free and a great resource.

What is important is Ram and hard drive IOPS/space. You can get away with 1gig for 2008 R2 and 512-768 for W7 clients. At the moment, I need about 9 domain controllers and about seven clients running at once. 16 gigs can easily do it.

Hard-drives are the largest issue. During powered on use a number of VM's can use a single normal drive. Unfortunately this becomes a issue if you try to do anything hard-drive intensive on any more then one machine at once. Like turning 1 off or on(2 minutes) or turning 2 off or on(10-20 minutes). You get the picture?

To give you a example.

I have a Raid5 with a 64mb Dell Cerc 1.5 card running six 10k 80gig raptors. I also have a 15k 128gig SAS drive, a 10k 320gig SAS drive, a 750gig F3 and a early gen 128gig SSD. I can really use two VM's for any of the single drives(SAS and 750gig). The SSD can handle at least five, but storage becomes a issue as even with thin provisioning server installs average around 17 gigs including updates. The raid array can happily handle around five, but can do up 10 so far if needed without any huge issues.

So if you can afford it, a New high capacity SSD is well worth the investment, with a larger raid 1 array for backup and storage.

So if you really want a usable machine for study drop the idea of a media centre pc as well, cheap out on the cpu and gfx, drop the wi-fi, bump up the ram and spend big money on one or two SSD's.

Hey Cuddlesworth,

That's some great information thanks for that. Sound like some setup you have. Would i need more than 16gb and a ssd? I'm only planning on using the rig for to help me learn and practice as i'm planning to get either my MSCE or MCITP so i think i could easily get away with a setup like above with me only running vm's for a couple of hours a day.

Cuddlesworth

kavo87 wrote: »

Hey Cuddlesworth,

That's some great information thanks for that. Sound like some setup you have. Would i need more than 16gb and a ssd? I'm only planning on using the rig for to help me learn and practice as i'm planning to get either my MSCE or MCITP so i think i could easily get away with a setup like above with me only running vm's for a couple of hours a day.

8gigs is a squeeze, 12 works, 16 is perfect right up to MCSE, MCITP;Enterprise Admin. You don't need any more then that.

The SSD is important, a single or even a raid array on fast drives drop dead when hit with Multiple VM's. Even worse if the box isn't dedicated. SSD's bypass that issue with huge transfer rates and microscopic seeks times. If your going to spend money on a machine for training for the love of god spend it on a high capacity SSD. The difference is insane.

For 640 alone your looking at 3 DC's for your main Domain, at least one Client and a file server, one DC for a sub domain and at least one client, one DC for a forest trust and at least one client and some CA servers. That's the first exam.

Then you move onto separate DNS servers, DHCP servers, WSUS, etc. Believe me, **** gets complicated.

So you will need a drive to move VM's onto and off of the SSD, or to store files, ISO's etc. Doesn't have to be huge.

Other then that you don't really need anything else. try to confirm your hardware is ESX/Citrix Xenserver compatible.

I would also recommend doing the course work for the entire MCITP(whatever one your going for) and then doing the exams. Microsoft are assholes in that each exam is linked to the rest in the qualification. So 640 includes questions that are based on the 642 and 646 coursework.

/Rant out....

kavo87

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

8gigs is a squeeze, 12 works, 16 is perfect right up to MCSE, MCITP;Enterprise Admin. You don't need any more then that.

The SSD is important, a single or even a raid array on fast drives drop dead when hit with Multiple VM's. Even worse if the box isn't dedicated. SSD's bypass that issue with huge transfer rates and microscopic seeks times. If your going to spend money on a machine for training for the love of god spend it on a high capacity SSD. The difference is insane.

For 640 alone your looking at 3 DC's for your main Domain, at least one Client and a file server, one DC for a sub domain and at least one client, one DC for a forest trust and at least one client and some CA servers. That's the first exam.

Then you move onto separate DNS servers, DHCP servers, WSUS, etc. Believe me, **** gets complicated.

So you will need a drive to move VM's onto and off of the SSD, or to store files, ISO's etc. Doesn't have to be huge.

Other then that you don't really need anything else. try to confirm your hardware is ESX/Citrix Xenserver compatible.

I would also recommend doing the course work for the entire MCITP(whatever one your going for) and then doing the exams. Microsoft are assholes in that each exam is linked to the rest in the qualification. So 640 includes questions that are based on the 642 and 646 coursework.

/Rant out....

Thanks again you've been a huge help when i get back from my hols i'm gonna look into ssd's maybe a 64gb would prob do the job for me at the moment. Before i order anything i'll post it here.

Yeah was told that about ms exams that they're all linked with each other. Any chance you could recommend a book on the course i could use to get me through the exams?