Bare minimum requirements for XCP-ng

Computer Hardware & Server Infrastructure Builds
1

I’ve got a TrueNAS server and backup server running on Supermicro X10 generation motherboards. Looking to branch out and explore XCP-ng. Budget is pretty much $0.00 so I’m wondering if I can run it on the flotsam and jetsam I’ve got laying around or old hardware that I can pick up dirt cheap. Where another man’s trash could be my treasure.

What would be the bare minimum hardware needed? I’m not looking to do any real work. Just want to learn it and how to setup hardware and networking that would go with using it. Would something like an HP T620 Plus with 16GB of RAM be enough?

2

Bare minimuim , just for testing

The fastest processor you can afford, virtual machines will share this processor so the faster the processor you virtual machines will run quicker

As much memory you can get, as virtual machines will share this.

Local hard drive to install the software

You can store virtual machine hard drives on the Truenas server , else you need local storage.

3

When I had servers with Xeon X5650 processors, I was having some troubles with Server 2022 after some updates in March of 2023. So I suggest something like Xeon E5 XXXX v2 or newer as a baseline. Ideally you want a x86-64-v3 processor going forward, here’s a quick link https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/comments/s2x60j/how_do_i_know_if_my_cpu_supports_x86_64v3/

My current lab is running on older HP DL360p Gen8 that I got for around $200usd shipped (each), E5-2650L-v2 (20 cores/40 threads) and 128GB of ram installed. Generally for home lab, gigabit connections are OK, 10gbps is nice though. Supermicro X10 series would be really nice with some Xeon E5-xxxx v4 processors, but not going to be as cheap as the above HP or similar Dell servers.

One warning about the HP gen8 and gen9 stuff… Firmware has been generally locked behind a paywall. I’ve had good luck finding what I needed, and they may have opened some stuff up recently as the 360p got easier. This was from the JAVA era, and I think there was a licensing issue going on because a lot of stuff in that era went behind a paywall or just got deleted. Just a warning so you know what you might be stepping into.