hardware Archives

September 6, 2016

New Lab Machine/Portable VM Box Version 3

Back in 2013, I decided that no matter what laptop I had, in some ways it would be better to have a small, light, portable machine that I could take with me to be more of an uber-VM box. That way, my laptop could always be small/light or I could have VMs running in both. I mean, I can be running 10 – 15 VMs at any given time.

It would also allow me to do things like, say, run VMware Workstation on my laptop but Hyper-V on the small machine. Since I started doing this, others have picked up and run with this idea as well. It’s not uncommon for people to use these kinds of setups now, whereas when I started, I was basically the only one. My setup has recently changed, so I figured I’d discuss what I’m doing now and give a bit of history of how much things have changed in a relatively short time.

Version 1

When I decided to do this, the initial Intel Next Unit of Computing (NUC) machines were a bit underpowered for my liking. I initially ordered the DC3217IYE NUC, but it’s i3 was not up to the task – it was more the design than the i3 as I have run VMs on equivalent processors. For Version One of my small but portable VM box, I settled on the Foxconn NanoPC AT-7700. It had:

i7-3517U CPU
16GB of memory
1 2.5″ SSD

This worked fairly well. For the barebones machine with no memory or SSD, I paid just under $500 US (since I get readers from all over the world). Being a U processor, it wasn’t always the snappiest configuration nor the coolest (yay fans), but it was a good foray into this type of setup. At that time, 16GB of memory cost me $100.

Version 2

Fast forward to July 2014, and the “you must power your device on” rule which is still in effect when flying internationally.For what it’s worth, it’s real. I was selected for a random check at London Heathrow prior to a flight back last year. This was post-security right down by the entrance to the plane. Why is this date/event significant? Just prior to that, I purchased the Gigabyte Brix GB-BXi7-4770R I was going to take over to use while speaking. That didn’t happen, but I did use the Brix at home. So in a year I went from a U processor to:

i7-4770R CPU – a full CPU, not a U
Still 16GB of memory (204-pin 16GB DIMMs were not quite out yet)
1 x mSATA and 1 x 2.5″ drive (woot! more internal storage)

I think I paid $600 – $650 for it. The Brix is a hefty little thing, and while powerful, has its share of issues in my opinion. The fan is nearly always on (granted, I push these boxes), and running a server OS is no picnic. To be perfectly honest, the general problem with these setups is this: if you want to run a server OS such as Windows Server 2012 R2, driver support is non-existent or trial-by-error to get certain things to work. The last time I was using the Brix a graphics update nearly broke it. Ultimately, it’s not the best choice – especially today.

What all this meant was I needed to maintain a 16GB-based laptop which I was fine with as my main portable. Since I couldn’t take these with me, they became extra home virtualization/lab boxes. The Vaio Z Canvas I got in June of 2015 (which has the i7-4770HQ) is the best portable box/laptop I’ve ever had, and I’m hoping they do an update.

Version 3

Fast forward to now. As I inevitably do, I push limits and 16GB is becoming less tenable for a configuration for testing and demoing. Again, I love my Z Canvas – it never gets hot nor do I ever hear the fan (except when updating Windows …). I also have more and more of a need to have a dual Hyper-V/VMware setup for various reasons. Running Hyper-V under VMware is possible, but not the best configuration. This configuration would never be my main portable VM box, but due to some customer work and what I need to finish the book over the next little bit, I needed something. Its first public debut will be for tomorrow’s 24 Hours of PASS – Summit Preview Edition where I will be doing the session “A Closer Look at Distributed Availability Groups” at 17:00 GMT (1PM Eastern/10 AM Pacific).

Enter the new Intel NUC – the NUC6i7KYK. Instead of just shipping less powered NUCs, Intel decided to ship a full blown one. First and foremost, it supports Windows Server 2012 R2 with its drivers, which is a huge selling point if you want to have a home lab and want to run something like Hyper-V not in the desktop OS. you can do things like Shared VHDX which simplifies FCI configurations (but also complicates and can cause other issues that are fixed in Windows Server 2016). A few weeks back, I picked one up. It’s configured with:

i7-6770HQ (basically the newer version of the processor of what is in my Z Canvas)
32GB of memory (I paid $114 at MicroCenter; it’s usually about $120 on Amazon)
It only has M.2 slots for drives, but it has two of them. More on that in a minute.

I wanted instant gratification, so I got mine at my local MicroCenter for $599. As of today, it’s $569.99 on Amazon. Talk about how far we’ve come! The new NUC is very light without the AC adapter/power brick. It ships with the skull cover which is not exactly my taste, and they include a plain one and a tool to change it, so I did. As you can see in Figure 1, it’s just slightly longer than a DVD and not much thicker than it.

Figure 1. New NUC vs. DVD case

Most people may be used to either more standard 2.5″ drives (SSD or HDD) or mSATA. This NUC only takes SSDs which have the M.2 form factor. An M.2 SSD looks similar to a stick of gum. Figure 2 shows what one looks like. For this build, I decided to go all out. I got what is the top of the line right now. These are not your normal M.2 drives. Sure, I could have “cheaped out” and purchased something like two Samsung Evo 850 1TB which are only about $350, and it would have been fine..

Figure 2. M.2 form factor SSD

Everyone who knows me I tend to do “go big or go home”, so I got what is arguably the best as of today – two 1TB NVMe M.2 2280 drives. The first is the hard-to-find OEM only Samsung SM961 1TB drives which is rated at 3200 MB/s for sequential reads and 1800 MB/s for sequential writes, and 450K IOPS for both 4K random reads and writes. It’s a smokin’ drive! The second one is the new OCZ (nee Toshiba) RD400 series (the RVD400-M22280-1TB) which is nice, but not as fast as the SM961. You can see its specs here.

I know there are some of you out there (including Max who is my business partner) who prefer to build PCs and pick things like power supply, case, etc. I am not that guy. I’ve done it, but I don’t geek out on that stuff. With this NUC, you unscrew the bottom, pop in the memory and drives, and away you go. Figure 3 shows what the NUC looks like with everything installed. I can’t say enough about how easy it is to get up and running with this.

Figure 3. Inside the NUC6i7KYK

I’ve set this up with one drive running Windows 10 with VMware Workstation 12, and the other running Windows Server 2012 R2. Again, thanks to Intel for supporting Windows Server 2012 R2 with drivers for the NUC. I did try to use Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 5, but had driver issues (even when I tried to upgrade from Windows Server 2012), so I will wait until it is fully supported by Intel. This has been MUCH easier than the Brix and I’ve had no stability issues. Intel’s BIOS utility is also well thought out. You will want to make sure that the CPU power saving setting is disabled (it is on by default) if you want the best performance. Like my Z Canvas, Intel did a wonderful job with system design. I rarely hear the fan and it stays very cool even when running quite a few VMs.

So if you’re building a new lab or even want a new home PC (even if it’s just for music or watching video), I think you can’t beat the new Intel NUC6i7KYK. You don’t have to load yours up like I did with top-of-the-line SSDs and 32GB of memory, but for about $1000, you will have something very powerful and for equivalent money, we’ve come a long way since 2013 and Version 1. Because I can travel with it in the US, it may come with me to PASS Summit but we’ll see … it’s too soon to tell.

February 6, 2014

Farewell, Sony Vaio

Today is a bittersweet day for me. No, it’s not because my class in London is concluding (more on that in an upcoming post). Today, Sony announced that they are selling the Vaio division. While it looks like the company buying it, Japan Industrial Partners Inc., will pick up some of the business and people (I guess somewhat like when IBM sold their PC division to Lenovo), it is the end of an era.

Before you say, “It’s just a PC, Allan,” I have a sentimental relationship with Vaios. I’ve also had a love-hate relationship with owning them, too. The first laptop I truly lusted after was the Vaio TR as well as the still enviable X505 which was thin before thin was even cool. It’s still a wonder to behold. My first Vaio (which I still have) and UMPC was the U70P (see Sony’s old site in Japan here) 10 years ago. It’s still, like the X505, a marvel (I’m using its keyboard with the Tap 11 today). It was certainly ahead of its time and to this day remains one of the favorites of any laptop I have ever owned. Heck, one of my music players – the VGF-AP1L – was Vaio branded. It sounded great and had this cool touch interface, and it had a color screen which was unusual at the time.

Since then I have owned a VGN-SZ90 (which I wrote Pro SQL Server 2005 High Availability on), a VGN-Z90 (the Z that kicked off the modern line) which boasted one of the first proprietary RAIDed SSD configurations, two Gs (my favorite ultraportable PC ever if I was honest with myself), the Vaio Duo 11, a Vaio Pro 13, and finally, the Vaio Tap 11. [As an aside, I love how Sony has maintained all of those old sites …]

The Z90 and the Pro 13 were really the only ones I never bonded with in any way. The Pro 13 I would argue is still one of the best ultrabooks made but I didn’t love the keyboard; as someone who does a lot of writing, that was an issue. Sony unfortunately these past few years couldn’t always deliver the specs I wanted – enter the Panasonics I’ve owned from Japan.

Sure, Sony’s laptops could be expensive (especially if you ordered them from Japan as I often did; the Pro 13 and Tap 11 are from the US, though). They had one thing most PCs did not have: a bit of style. The Japanese models – until recently anyway – had higher specs or different options you couldn’t get outside of Japan … but they offered US keyboards. The U70P, SZ, Z, and Gs were all Japanese. Think about your average ThinkPad – black, square, businesslike – boring. Do they do they job? You bet, but when one wants their laptop to look a bit better, outside of Apple, people thought Sony. In fact if stories are to be believed, Apple wanted Sony to run OS X.

While my daily driver is not the Tap 11 today, I will always have fond memories of some of the marvels Sony produced when it came to laptops. When you see a boring Lenovo, Dell, or HP, remember what Sony once gave us. Sometimes unusual, often flashy, not always practical, but they did some cool stuff. Rest in peace, Sony Vaio.

October 18, 2013

Even If You Are Prepared, *&%$ Happens

Good morning from the last day of PASS Summit here in Charlotte, NC. All in all, it’s been a great week but it has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride for me. Why? Let me explain.

I got in on Sunday and we had our first company meeting with Max on board. Since Ben lives around here, it made a lot of sense to do it pre-Summit. After we were done and I was in the hotel room, I went to tidy up some things in VMs I had done for demos as well as for the upcoming Australia classes in a few weeks. I was going to hand off the drives here since the guys from WardyIT were going to be at Summit. So far so good.

Then I plugged in the drive – a Mushkin 480GB mSATA SSD in an external USB 3.0 enclosure.

Dead.

I discovered this late Sunday night and did all I thought of to try to resuscitate it. I made sure it wasn’t my computing devices, since I had a new Samsung 840 EVO 1TB SSD (nice drive BTW – super fast) in an external enclosure as well as the two external Touro 500GB 7200rpm drives to give to Wardy and a Patriot Supersonic 256GB Magnum USB 3.0 flash drive. All said and done, 2.75TB of external storage, and 1.25 in my machines for a total of 4.0TB of storage (most of which is full at this point, sad to say). The VMs I needed were only on that SSD which worked fine the day before. I powered down, unplugged, and just put it in my bag.

What did I do? Well, after a few hours of trying, I went to bed. I knew deep down that the next few days were going to be long, so some sleep would be needed. I got up around 9AM on Monday and started redoing all of the VMs I needed for my pre-conference session on Tuesday. We also had a SQLHA party Monday night, which given where I was, turned out to be a bit problematic personally. I did show up for a bit (Ben and Max were there, so it was OK). I finally stopped working on VMs at 6:30 Tuesday morning, got showered, delivered my pre-con, and just collapsed after. When all was said and done, I was up for approximately 36 hours. On Wednesday morning, I got up and worked until about 4:20 in the afternoon for my 4:45PM spotlight session. On Thursday morning, luckily the Patriot had older versions of the lab VMs and I just used those to do what I needed to do to hand off the Touro drives to Wardy last night.

They say never let them see you sweat, and that is exactly what I did. I sucked it up and got stuff done. Needless to say, I have not been at the convention center too much nor did I go to the NASCAR party last night. I came back to my hotel and just went to sleep.

Before I left on Sunday morning, I (ironically) made a backup of my main laptop (I’ll be on the road quite a bit the next few weeks so it’s always good to do something like that before) and I’ve never had an external SSD die like that on me. I did not think that roughly one day later I’d be looking at having to redo nearly 4 days worth of work, but that is where I wound up.

This does beg the question – how much redundancy do you need when it comes to things like backups? Up until now, I’ve never really had an issue on the road. Now? It has me thinking quite a bit about my demo situation. I was lucky I had that new Samsung drive to be able to rebuild things otherwise I would have been doing a bit of a song and dance both on Tuesday and Wednesday. So I did have the right tools with me, thankfully.

I’ll just chalk this one up to *&%$ happens since in all my years of doing demos, I’ve never had a massive hardware failure like this. I’ll see when the scores are tallied, but I felt really good about my pre-con and the Troubleshooting Clusters session (which was also rebroadcast on PASStv). I may wind up doing the Troubleshooting Clusters session again at some point since it was a lot of fun to do. I am thankful for everyone who came out to both.

Oh yeah, and we had a booth (Consultant’s Corner – #129) down on the exhibition floor with two others (Denny Cherry and Linchpin People). Luckily Ben and Max picked up the slack since when I wasn’t presenting, I was back in the hotel reviving VMs. I will be down there for a bit today, so stop by and say hello. I should be there later in the AM until the exhibition hall closes.

That’s been my week here at Summit. Net positive, but definitely some hard lessons learned. I hope you filled out your evals and left feedback – good or bad (and if bad, constructive) – so I can improve the next time out. See you at an event soon!

June 5, 2013

My Problem With Intel’s Haswell Processors

This week, Intel formally announced its Haswell processors. In the mobile world, this is a big deal because unlike the previous generation of processors (Ivy Bridge), this new one promises things like better battery life and better graphics. I’m all for better battery life. Part of that is they had to redesign the ultra low voltage (ULV) chips that go in many computers. They have a lower power consumption than Ivy Bridge. By the numbers I’ve seen in preliminary tests, Intel really did improve battery life.

My excitement, however, is short lived. As usual, I’m enticed by new and shiny laptops – most notably the upcoming Vaio Pro 11 or Vaio Pro 13. The Pro 11 reminds me of a cross between my old Vaio G, the older Vaio T (not the new cheapie one), and maybe a bit of the X505 thrown in for good measure. Why is my enthusiasm dampered? Virtualization.

Here’s why: one of the things I love being able to do is run Hyper-V (and sometimes ESX) under VMware Workstation. I use Hyper-V for most of my demos, but it’s easier to show some things Hyper-V related under VMware since I can virtualize the hypervisor and have nested virtual machines. Besides the standard virtualization (VT-x in the Intel world), what allows you to run a hypervisor and nested 64-bit guests is the Intel VT-x with Extended Page Tables (EPT) feature of the processor. EPT = second level address translation (SLAT) for you geeky types. This requirement is documented by VMware here.

Cue the sad trombone. According to Intel’s whiz-bang Virtualization Technology web page, with the new Haswell chips, only some of the desktop processors got SLAT support; no mobile processor did. Don’t believe me? Click here.

This is a real setback for those of us who do complex demos from time to time like nested VMs. Remoting back home is not always an option. I’m going to have to seriously consider getting another backup Ivy Bridge machine (even if it’s a small form backup like the NUC) because outside of video, I won’t easily be able to demo some things anymore starting with Haswell.

I’m also bemoaning the fate of things like ethernet ports and VGA, but those can be solved with adapters. You can’t add a feature to a processor.

My woes here really fall into 1% of the user base for a mobile processor. I realize this. But if you’re like me, this is a pause before you get all giddy over Haswell.

EDIT: See my follow up post http://www.sqlha.com/2013/06/13/haswell-and-ept-update/. Intel posted the wrong info initially.

April 8, 2013

Building a Lab or Portable Demo VM Box Cheaply – Part 1

Last fall, I got my first new laptop in about 18 months which is an eternity for me. For a bit of my history see my blog post Laptops of Doom. The Panasonic CF-J10 served me well, but still wasn’t perfect. At 10.1″, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, 1 x USB 3.0 (albeit slow), a Core i7-2620M, and decent battery life with weight under 3lbs, you’d think I’d be happy as a clam. Even with the 1TB of SSD I had in there, it wasn’t enough room and the USB 3.0 was slow compared to other machines, which led me to believe it has to do with motherboard design (boo). It was starting to act up on me (trackpad not functioning right), so I knew I needed an interim solution. Enter the Sony Vaio Duo 11 (which I will do a review of at some point). I love the machine but its main weak link is only 8GB of memory, and it can’t be expanded since it’s basically soldered onto the motherboard. Welcome to 2013.

For the deliveries of my mission critical/high availability class last year in Australia, I took both machines with me – I was still well under 6lbs. I got an external mouse for the Panasonic and it was basically my demo box with Hyper-V and Windows Server 2012, and the Duo my main presentation machine. One nice thing about the Duo is the pen input for things like virtual blackboarding. Even with the Core i7 ULV, the Duo really seems snappier than my Panasonic. To date, I still haven’t yet sent the Panasonic back to Japan because I need a backup computer. The Duo only has regular Windows 8 (not Pro), so I’ve been using VMware Workstation a lot like I have in the past. I’ve been able to do my demos with an external USB 3.0 SSD drive, but they’ve been limited. Bottom line is I use both Hyper-V and VMware Workstation, and need a presenter machine. Sometimes one machine isn’t enough, so that got me thinking (and also because I want to be able to send my J10 in for repair) – what can I do?

My idea – crazy as it is/was – was to find a small, yet portable PC, connect it to my Duo via a crossover cable, and use Remote Desktop to get in.

Enter the small form factor (SFF) PC.

My weight requirements for schlepping still have not changed, and I am hanging out to see what happens once the Haswell-based laptops are introduced before even considering something new, but carrying around my Duo plus a small box running Hyper-V seemed somewhat reasonable if I can keep the solution portable. One reason I need this for some speaking engagements is that VMware Workstation allows me to show, say, Hyper-V and some scenarios like Live Migration easily. The problem is that you can’t easily run both Hyper-V and VMware Workstation at the same time under Windows 8 – you basically have to enable one and disable the other which you can’t really do mid-talk. The weight requirement has historically been difficult, since most SFF PCs with any power have been small by tower standards, but still kinda beefy and robust. That has changed recently.

Two boxes fit the bill: Foxconn’s AT-7000 series which you can get in Core i3 (AT-7300), i5 (AT-7500), or i7 (AT-7700) variants, and the Intel Next Unit of Computing (NUC), which currently only has a Core i3 (rumor has it they are going to introduce an i5 version soon). There are two main variants of the NUC – one that has ethernet built in (the DC3217IYE) and two HDMI outs, and one with one HDMI out and one Thunderbolt but no ethernet (the DC3217BY). With both, it’s basically a plug in your own RAM and storage and away you go.

There are some other technical differences between the AT-7000 series and the NUC, namely:

The NUC has 3 x USB 2.0 ports (boo) and you would need an adapter for HDMI to VGA if you wanted to hook it up directly to something if HDMI was not an option (and it often isn’t when presenting; VGA is still the defacto standard). The AT-7000 has 4 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0, DVI and HDMI out (and they include a DVI –> VGA adapter in the box).
Ethernet only comes with the DC3217IYE; you would have to get a USB one if you wanted ethernet for the DC3217BY. The AT-7000 series has it built-in, just like the DC3217IYE.
The AT-7000 series also has microphone, headphone, and line out if you want such things (unnecessary for portable use), as well as a card reader (SD/MS/MMC).
The NUC only has mSATA internally, whereas the AT-7000 can take a full 2.5″ drive.

You may be thinking that the AT-7000 is a slam dunk considering you can get your choice of processors and it has some better port options. On paper everything is always better.

I ordered both the DC3217IYE and the AT-7700 with the intention of returning one of them (we’ll see if that happens …) with 16GB of Corsair Vengeance RAM (DDR3 1600 MHz [PC3 12800]), a Mushkin 480GB mSATA SSD, and for the AT-7700, a StarTech mSATA –> 2.5″ adapter enclosure. I got the DC3217IYE and RAM from Amazon (they had better prices at the time, and with the NUC, a better return policy), and the 480GB SSD and the adapter enclosure from Newegg. Let’s look at my costs:

DC3217IYE – $292.49
RAM – $99.99
Crossover cable – $2.52
SSD – $439.99
AT-7700 – $489.99
mSATA adapter – $30.99

The NUC solution costs $834.99 and the AT-7700 solution $1063.48. Now, you may not need a 480GB SSD, and standard 2.5″ SSDs are cheaper than mSATA ones; I didn’t want to buy two sets of storage so here it really is the same thing for me. If you went down to the i3 ($339.99 at Newegg) or i5 ($399.99 at Newegg) and used a different SSD or even a standard platter-based drive, the NUC and AT-7000 series are basically parity cost-wise. Let’s say you pick the i3 AT-7300:

AT-7300 – $339.99
RAM – $99.99
Crossover cable – $2.52
500GB 2.5″ SSD (Samsung 840; not the Pro which is about $130 more) – $335.09 on Amazon now

The total is $777.59 – cheaper than the equivlent NUC solution. If you splurged and spent the extra $60 on the AT-7500 to get an i5, it would be only a few dollars more than the NUC solution. Crazy!

The thing about these solutions is that I’m looking at them as portable hypervisors and that’s how I’ll largely talk about them, but they’re so cheap and cost effective that they can work for a lab solution for your own personal use or where you work – and they’re tiny. That can’t be underestimated.

In Part 2, I will cover some differences that may make a difference for some (including myself) such as size and weight, and talk about the process of configuring these little wonderboxes. The third part of this series will concentrate more on usability and how they work in conext of my workflow.

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