Redundant VM System

[gruvent]

Budget: Under $2,000
Processor : Preferd I7
Case: Hot Swappable Drives
Two Hot Spairs on standby
Host OS: Any
HD Size: 1T
VM OS: Latest windows server
Monitor/Keyboard/Mouse: Already have one

I will be building a system that will be hosting 1 VirtualBox VM Server. The key here is up time. This thing has to stay running 24/7. I am using a VM setup so if a major failure occurs with the hardware, I can quickly transfer the VM to a temp maching while repairs are being done. The hard drives need to be redundant with a failover raid system. This way if a drive goes down, the raid will move to a hot spare and keep going. I would like to manage the raid from windows. Hot swappable bays will be nice for removing drives that go bad.

The VM this computer will be hosting will have SQL Server running 24/7 that requires 16 Gigs of memory to run smoothly. So I guess the host needs 24 or 32+ gigs of memory to run smoothly?

I'm looking for some recommendations on some hardware combinations that should work great together. I do alot of my shopping at new egg, however it's not required.

Thanks for the help!

 

[TheBigTroll]

ok id get this.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/rKDB

-i assume that you are not going to use a GPU much so i put a low end GPU just to power the monitor
-the 3tb drives are enterprise grade, just not enterprise speed. i will assume that you are putting 2 drives in raid 1 and i added the other one as a spare
-the haf xm has 2 hot swap bays. not sure if that is enough
-xeons work fine in a x79 rig. 8 cores will be better than 6 in your case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117266
-memory hardly fails. i didnt get ECC ram

 

[gruvent]

Gigabyte GA-X79-UP4 ATX LGA2011 Motherboard easy to manage the Raid from windows?

Also, the WD Red drives. I have never used them. Are they good drives? (I only require 1T drives. Forgot to add that to the original post)

Anyone used this 8 core cpu? It may be a bit much as I was just told to keep this system arround $2,000 instead of $3,000

 

[TheBigTroll]

not sure about raid. i dont use raid

red drives are the same as the WD enterprise class drives, but these are built for NAS systems. still work fine in a regular system. they spin slower, therefore are not complete enterprise class

you could use a 6 core variant. that will shave 400 dollars or so