Bill of Materials
MS-A2 units (2)
Total compute:
2x 16c/32t - 32 cores / 64 threads = 64 vCPU 2x 128 = 256GB RAM
2x 500GB for boot (Samsung 980 Pro) (probably slot 1) 2x 4TB for NVMe Tiering (Samsung 990 PRO SSD 4TB) (probably slot 2) 2x 4TB vSAN ESA (WD_BLACK 4TB SN850X NVMe SSD) (probably slot 3)
All three slots support PCIe 4.0 x4 speeds, offering theoretical transfer rates up to 7,000 MB/s per drive.
William Lam’s Configuration:
NVMe 1: ESXi installation, ESX-OSData and VMFS volume NVMe 2: NVMe Tiering NVMe 3: vSAN ESA
Purchases (MS-A2)
Amazon Orders (4 Invoices:)
2x MINISFORUM MS-A2 Mini Workstation AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX Order # 113-8395218-5695439 (1,903.64) 2x Crucial 128GB Kit (2X64GB) DDR5 RAM 5600MHz Order # 113-5729944-1201853 (644.24) 2x Samsung 980 Pro 500GB PCle 3.0x4, NVMe M.2 2280 SSD Order # 113-0951057-4297063 2x WD_BLACK 4TB SN850X NVMe SSD - Gen4 PCIe, M.2 2280 Order # 113-0951057-4297063 (768.42) 2x Samsung 990 PRO SSD 4TB PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive Order # 113-4717683-8609818 (655.16) ASURION 3 Year Desktop Protection Plan ($800 - $899.99) Order # 113-6837792-9780214 (179.98) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Grand Total after taxes: $4,151.44
Still Need (MS-A2)
- Add a PCIe HBA card to expand vSAN Capacity: SAS/SATA/NVMe drives
Synology DiskStation Upgrades
Purchases (DS918+)
Amazon Orders (2 Invoices:)
- 2x Seagate IronWolf 8TB NAS Internal Hard Drive HDD – 3.5 Inch SATA 6Gb/s 7200 RPM 256MB Cache for RAID Network Attached Storage Order # 113-3135534-3885068 (327.70)
- 1x Timetec 4GB SODIMM DDR3L 1866Mhz RAM Order # 113-7546554-1010622 (13.37) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Grand Total after taxes: $341.07
Still Need (DS918+)
- Synology 10G card E10G18-T1 (DS918+ compatible) ($129.99)
MS-A2 [SFP+] ═══ SFP+ to RJ45 Module ═══ Cat6a ═══ [RJ45] Synology
Rack
Purchases (DeskPi RackMate)
Amazon Orders (1 Invoice:)
- GeeekPi 8U Server Cabinet, 10 inch Server Rack for Network, Servers, Audio, and Video Equipment, DeskPi RackMate T1 Rackmount Order # 113-9139070-6407430
- GeeekPi 12 Port Patch Panel, 0.5U CAT6 Network Patch Panel for DeskPi RackMate T1/T0/T2 Rackmount and 10 Inch Server Rack/Network Cabinet
- GeeekPi 0.5U Metal Horizontal Rackmount Cable Manager with 3 D-Ring Hooks – 10 Inch Server Rack Cable Management Panel for DeskPi Rackmate T1/T0/T2
- DeskPi RackMate Accessories Rack Shelf 10 inch 1U Rack, 1U Server Rack Shelf Vented Rack Mount Cantilever Tray for 10 Inch Network Equipment Rack & Cabinet and DeskPi Rackmate T1/T0
- iMBAPrice UL Listed 0.5 Feet (6 inch) Cat6 Ethernet Network Patch Cable, LAN, UTP RJ45 Internet Cat 6 Cable (10 Pack) Blue, Compatible with Personal Computer
- GeeekPi #10-32 x 5/16” Pan Head Screws with Washers for DeskPi RackMate T1/T0/T2 Rackmount/Server Cabinet (30)
- VELCRO Brand ONE-WRAP Cable Ties, 100Pk, 8 x 1/2” Black Cord Organization Straps, Thin Pre-Cut Design, Wire Management for Organizing Home, Office and Data Centers
- 10” Rack PDU - 1U (4 Outlet) Power Distribution Unit 10 inch for Mini Racks w/Protection (110V/15A 6ft Cable) Network Cabinet Rackmount Power Strip (in Wall, Desk or Server Rack Mount) Tupavco TP1713 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Grand Total after taxes: $297.44
┌─────────────────────────────┐
│ 0.5U - Patch Panel │
│ 0.5U - D-Ring Cable Manager │
│ 1U - USW Lite 16 PoE │
│ 1U - Rack Shelf (MS-A2) │
│ 1U - Rack Shelf (MS-A2) │
│ 1U - [Available] │
│ 2U - [Shelf for NUCs] │
│ 1U - AC PDU │
└─────────────────────────────┘
Still Need (DeskPi RackMate)
- GeeekPi 12U Server Cabinet, 10 inch Server Rack DeskPi RackMate T2 Rackmount ($179.99) T2 dimensions: 11.02 x 10.23 x 23.22 inches (10.23”D x 11.02”W x 23.22”H) T1 dimensions: 11 x 7.8 x 16 inches (7.8”D x 11”W x 16”H)
- 5-pack 3ft IEC Power Cables: ($23.98)
- 10” Rack PDU ($59.98)
- 4x or more 1U shelves ($86.00)
Networking Infrastructure
Still Need (10GbE)
- USW-Aggregation or USW-Flex-XG or MikroTik CRS305-1G-4S+IN for 10G backbone
- USW-Pro-24-PoE (maybe in the future)
- 4x 2m 10GbE SFP+ DAC Cables
- 10Gtek 𝟭.𝟮𝟱/𝟮.𝟱/𝟱/𝟭𝟬𝗚-𝗧 𝗦𝗙𝗣+ 𝘁𝗼 𝗥𝗝𝟰𝟱 CAT.6a Copper Transceiver