Create A VMFS5 Datastore On A USB Drive Ever wondered if it was possible to use a USB Drive as a VMFS5 datastore in VMware vSphere 6.0?  I sure know that I have!  Not that I would like to run any VM’s on said datastore, as I’m sure performance would not be optimal, but instead […]

PernixData FVP Freedom Woes With Missing System UUID Recently, I’ve been wanting to give PernixData FVP Freedom a run in my HomeLab Datacenter to better familiarize myself with the product and see how much of a performance improvement I’d get if any at all.  I’ve heard from so many people how much they love the product so […]

Installing phpIPAM on Ubuntu 16.04 I have been thinking, for a while now, about deploying an IP Address Management (IPAM) system in my Home Lab environment to keep track of my assigned addresses across my various VLANs.  In looking for the right solution, I came across many different choices, from Infloblox to Microsoft’s very own […]

Creating a Single-Node VSAN   Many of us homelab enthusiasts tend to build “whitebox” systems from spare PC parts and a few internal hard drives for local storage that we’ve either ordered or had laying around in order install ESXi and run a single-node lab environment.  VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) enables the ability to build […]

Create a Synology VM with XPEnology   I’m a huge fan of Synology NAS systems, but I must say, they do often put a gaping hole in your wallet.  Well, fortunately the folks over at XPEnology have created an alternative way for us to create your own Synology devices, whether it be deployed on a […]

Home Lab 2016 – Part 3   Hello all!  My sincere apologies for the brief hiatus, but I am back to continue my Home Lab 2016 series.  In my previous posts, I covered the components that make up my new Home Lab.  In this post I will quickly cover my Storage and Network solutions that […]

I recently picked up a new router/firewall for my home, and chose the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite (ERLite-3).  This device comes with a lot of bells and whistles and if you would like more information on it, please see here.I am a huge fan of speed and security, and for this purpose I always choose to […]

Intel NIC Not Detected by ESXi   In this post I am going to cover a random issue I encountered after installing ESXi 6.0 Update 2 on one of my new Home Lab 2016 hosts.  The actual installation of ESXi was extremely easy and painless (I may cover that in another post).  After I had completed […]

Home Lab 2016 – Part 2 Welcome back for Part 2 of my Home Lab 2016 Series.  I hope that you enjoyed my previous post, Part 1 from last week, where I covered the basis of my home lab and presented the Bill of Materials (BOM) for my mini-datacenter environment. Today I am bringing you Part […]

Home Lab 2016 – Part 1     Having a home lab is every IT enthusiasts dream come true, and now I can finally say that I have fulfilled that dream!  I previously was (and currently still am…) using a 1-node “white box” system I had built from a spare gaming machine I had laying […]