I am know planning to use esxi in my home enviroment.
I have looked through all the post on this forum and found the hardware that might suit me.

I am not entirely sure about this configuration so I thought asking you guys for your opinion.

Motherboard : GIGABYTE GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 Z68 S-1155 M-ATX
Processor: INTEL CORE I7 2600 3.40GHZ 8MB S-1155
Memory: CORSAIR 16GB DDR3 DOMINATOR PC10666 1333MHZ (4X4GB)
NIC : INTEL GIGABIT CT DESKTOP ADAPTER PCI-E
HDD: SAMSUNG SPINPOINT F3 1TB SATA/300 7200RPM 32MB

I will not use onbord NIC.

I want to use RAID but I am not sure which controller I should use. I was thinking about 4 x HDD in RAID 1.

What do you guys think?

I don't have that motherboard or CPU, but everything else looks OK. I'd probably get a second NIC, though.

For storage controllers, you can find several, that are on VMware's HCL, on eBay for relatively cheap. Whatever you end up getting, get one with a battery backup unit on it, because without it performance will be horrible.

I've seen some IBM ServeRaid controllers on eBay, which aren't too bad, but they seem to be more expensive these days than the Dell PERC5/i or PERC6/i. You might also be able to find a good deal on an LSI-branded controller as well. Just be sure that whichever deal you spot, before you bid on it, or buy it, check the VMware HCL and make sure it's supported for the version of ESXi that you'll be using.

Thank you vChad for your help, much appreciated. I will look around and see if I find some good motherboard for i7.

I have now decided on which part I will order.

This is my final specification;

Motherboard: 1 INTEL DESKTOP BOARD DQ67SWB3 Q67 S-1155 M-ATX
Memory: 1 CORSAIR 16GB DDR3 DOMINATOR PC10666 1333MHZ (4X4GB)
Controller: 1 IBM SERVERAID M5014 6GB SAS KONTROLLERKORT
Processor: 1 INTEL CORE I7 2600 3.40GHZ 8MB S-1155
NIC: 2 INTEL GIGABIT CT DESKTOP ADAPTER PCI-E
NIC: 1 INTEL PRO/1000 GT DESKTOP ADAPTER PCI
HDD: 4 SAMSUNG SPINPOINT F3 1TB SATA/300 7200RPM 32MB


In various threads I have found, this spec. should work. IBM SERVERAID M5014 I did find in vmware HCL and should be supported.

If nobody have any input on this spec, I probably will order these parts next week.
I hope this spec. will work

The M5014 should work, but please be aware that it does not come standard with a battery backup unit. Write performance will not be as good as it can be if you order one that does not have it. The performance difference when using a battery backup unit is significant enough to the point that I would (personally) not use a RAID controller without one.

The M5015 (IBM Part No: 46M0829) comes with a battery backup unit standard. It also has more cache than the M5014.

ServeRAID M5015 and M5014 SAS/SATA Controllers for IBM System xIBM System x at-a-glance guide:

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/tips0738.html

Something else to keep in mind:

That motherboard uses Intel's HD graphics, and if I remember right, will be dependant upon the specific CPU that you use in order to take advantage of it. This is important, because the motherboard also only has a single PCIe x16 slot in it, and no x8 slots. Therefore, the RAID controller will need to be installed in that x16 PCIe slot because it is a PCIe x8 card. With that in mind, you will not be able to install an add-on video card, because that would need the PCIe x16 slot, which will be in use by the RAID card. So, make sure that the CPU that you get supports the Intel HD graphics. Doing so will allow you to use the integrated DVI-D/Displayport connections that are on the motherboard. I think the CPU that you picked should be OK, but I would definitely double-check that before I bought anything.

Last, don't forget to update the firmware for the motherboard and RAID controller. I see some changes in the latest firmware (released on Aug 15th) for that motherboard that relate specifically to using PCIe RAID cards. So, I would make sure to at least update the motherboard BIOS.