Finally got my hands on a Supermicro E200-8D and now have a bit more compute resource for my home lab. It’s a well known micro server in the vCommunity but the full specs are here: https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/system/Mini-ITX/SYS-E200-8D.cfm

It only came with 1 x 32GB memory but has four slots so once I fill these, it’ll have resource for a decent little nested VMware vSphere environment to build, break and learn new products using my VMware User Group (VMUG) Advantage membership.

VMUG Advantage Members get many benefits like discounted VMware Education and exams but one of the most impressive things for myself was the Evaluation licenses for most VMware products. More information about the subscription can be found here: https://www.vmug.com/membership/vmug-advantage-membership

The first tasks were to add a 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe SSD and apply any firmware and IMPI updates

Connected the E200-8D to my Ubiquiti US-16-150W UniFi switch and configured it so it’s available on my home network.

The E200-8D has a PCIe slot which can be used for another SSD with the correct adapter. I had a spare 512GB NVMe which was going spare from an old laptop so purchased a PCIe to NVMe adapter and gained some more storage.

The adapter below is one I ordered which didn’t fit so it’s worth noting, none that are currently available on the UK Amazon fit the E200-8D. We need the NVMe connector on the right hand side and towards the back of the server when inserted in the slot. I found the correct one above from eBay seller quantapro for the nice price of £4.49.

I really need to purchase a comms cabinet!