Mike Tabor

Crucial 16GB memory, perfect for Intel NUC
November 17, 2014March 6, 2017 Home Lab
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I’m a huge fan the of Intel NUC‘s for a VMware home lab. In fact I just recently picked up my third Intel NUC to give me more head room for a small VMware Horizon (View) environment at home.

I typically use G.Skill memory in my NUC’s as I’ve had great luck with the brand in my desktop and laptop for years. However G.Skill has been increasing in price which made me look around for alternatives and came across Crucial DDR3 204-pin memory for less money, but days after I purchased it they too went up in price. However they are now back on sale and cost about $50 less then the G.Skill memory I have been using in my first two NUC’s.

I’ve been using the Crucial memory now for the last several months without any problems and even though they are rated at a lower voltage I can’t say I really see any difference in power savings or consumption compared to the G.Skill 1.5V. If you’re looking to upgrade now might be a good time to take advantage of the sale price.
How to install CrashPlan on Synology Diskstation
October 15, 2014August 24, 2017 Home Lab
270 Comments

A little while ago I posted several ways to improve the security on your Synology NAS and was recently asked about how to install CrashPlan on a Synology NAS. Synology doesn’t have it’s own pre-built package available, but luckily PC Load Letter from the Synology community has stepped up and made a Synology package that works beautifully – the only downside is his instructions are a bit dated and I found harder than they needed to be.

If you don’t already have a CrashPlan account, go ahead and sign up now.

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Installing Windows 10 on VMware Workstation 10
October 8, 2014October 7, 2014 VMware
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VMware just announced VMware Workstation 11, which includes support for Windows 10 Tech Preview along with several other latest version operating systems, but you don’t have to wait until December when Workstation 11 is released. You can install Windows 10 on VMware Workstation 10 now!

Installation is simple and everything seems to function just fine, VMware tools installs too.

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VMware VCP5-DCV Delta Re-certification Exam
October 1, 2014January 7, 2016 VMware
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Looking to renew your VCP before the March 10th 2015 expiration date? Then the new VMware VCP5-DCV Delta (Exam Code VCP550D) is a cheaper way to renew your VCP without taking the full on exam or not just ready to tackle the VCAP. The new exam covers new material between the vSphere 5.0/5.1 and vSphere 5.5 exams – looking the the blueprints, most noticeably VSAN.

While you still have to schedule the exam through Pearson VUE, you don’t have to take the course at a testing center and instead can take it online from any device!

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VMware Workstation 11 Announced
October 1, 2014 VMware
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VMware has just announced that VMware Workstation 11 will be released as general availability come December 2014! VMware Workstation 11 will offer support for the latest version of Windows and Linux operating systems, running on the latest CPU’s and computer hardware while also now able to connect to VMware vCloud Air!

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VMware VCP exam coupons, save 50%!
September 24, 2014October 11, 2014 VMware
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Current VCPs save 25% off any VCP exam

All current VMware Certified Professionals can save 25% on exams taken before January 1st, 2015 on the following VCP exams:

VMware Certified Professional 5 – Data Center Virtualization
- Exam Code: VCP550
- Exam Code: VCP510
VMware Certified Professional 5 – Desktop
- Exam code: VCP510-DT
- Exam code: VCPD510
VMware Certified Professional – Cloud
- Exam Code: VCPC550
- Exam Code: VCPC510
- Exam Code: VCPVCD510
VMware Certified Professional – Network Virtualization
- Exam Code: VCPN610
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How to add Realtek R8168 to ESXi 5.5 Update 2 ISO
September 17, 2014December 9, 2014 Home Lab
15 Comments

Over the past weekend I was working on a whitebox ESXi host and wanted to upgrade it to ESXi 5.5 Update 2 from an older version of ESXi 5.1 using a realtek R8168 network card. While I could have performed an in place upgrade, such as via command line, a clean install was preferred. However, VMware has removed a number of NIC drivers from ESXi 5.x and trying to install with the base ESXi image would result in a “No Network Adapters” error during install.

In order to do a clean install you have to re-add the Realtek R8168 NIC drivers back into the ESXi 5.5 image, otherwise a NIC will not be found and thus ESXi will not install. These are the steps to easily re-add the Realtek R8168 drivers into ESXi 5.5 ISO by making a custom ESXi 5.5 image.

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Edit Virtual Hardware 10 VM’s with vSphere 5.5 U2 client
September 12, 2014December 22, 2014 VMware
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When ESXi 5.5 came out so did a new virtual hardware version, 10, as well. However the ability to edit virtual machines have have been upgraded to virtual hardware 10 was restricted to only the vSphere web client. In some cases people have put off upgrading to virtual hardware 10 either for dislike of the web client or knowing you cannot edit the VM in the event of the web client being down.

That all changes today, VMware has just released vCenter 5.5 Update 2 today and one of the “resolved issues” in today’s release notes is the ability to now edit virtual machines with Virtual Hardware 10 using the vSphere thick (C#) client.

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VMware vSphere 5.5 Update 2 released
September 9, 2014September 16, 2014 VMware
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VMware vCenter Server and ESXi 5.5 Update 2 has just been released today with a number of fixes and additional features such as vCenter Server database support for Oracle 12c, Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1, and Microsoft SQL Server 2014 in vCenter Server and support for ESXi hosts with 6TB of RAM in the ESXi 5.5 update 2 release!

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Securing your Synology NAS, Part 2
August 6, 2014January 12, 2015 Synology
45 Comments

Earlier this year I posted instructions on how to install an SSL certificate on your Synology NAS. That was before the Dogecoin malware were found infecting Synology NAS boxes early this summer or now the “SynoLocker” ransomware that encrypts all the data on your NAS and forces you to pay $350 to decrypt the data. Below I’m going to list several ways to help protect your NAS, I’ll be using my Synology DS412+ for demo.

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Current VCPs save 25% off any VCP exam