My home lab is a pair of Precision 390s with 4GB of RAM, 80GB SATA disk, and NFS/iSCSI from a FreeNAS server.

ESX 3.0 will not run on those boxes without a supported SCSI conrtoller, but ESX 3.5 does support the SATA controller. ESX 3.x (.0 or .5) does not detect the network controller. I put in a couple of Intell Pro 1000 cards for networking.

Keep in mind that VMware does not provide support for these hosts as they are not on the HCL. But from personal experience, they will work.

-jk

Hey guys/gals...

First off let me say, this is my first time posting on the board.. .I've been a distant reader of the communities forum for sometime now...and I think the people and the information on here are an asset to the VMware community.

Currently I'm in the process of setting up an ESX 3.5 environment here at the house. Since we are not allowed to play with our production environment at wotk, i was forced to purchase an HP Pavilion Elite M9100t CTO Desktop PC (see link below for the specs), which I was going to use for my ESX testing. Obviously I'm unable to test VMotion which is fine.

My question is this... Until I came accross this thread, I was under the assumption that I needed to purchase a LSI SATA controller in order for it to be compatable with 3.5. However the above post stated that the ICH9 controller will work with 3.5. My concern is the controller that comes with this system is a ICH9R... so I'm not sure if it works or not... that plus, I haven't been able to locate the drivers for it so see if it works. I've tried Asus, Intel.. HP...and found nothing yet. And no, the PC did not come with any type of driver CD.....Can anyone provide any additional information on this...?

Link: (http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/prodinfoCategory?lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=3659712&os=2093&lang=en)

Thank you for your help...

Rick

HP Pavilion Elite m9100t CTO Desktop PC

ESX 3.5 introduced support for SATA controllers, but the supported list is pretty short right now. Fortunately for test / learning systems, ESX 3.5 will recognize and work with a number of controllers including models from nVidia, Promise Technologies and Intel. In some cases, ESX will not recognize the sata controller, but you can get it to work by editing the PCI database files. That procedure you can find here http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3.5/SATA_mounting_root_failed.html and here - http://communities.vmware.com/message/818114

Another option might be to run 3i from a usb flash drive - http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/Boot%203i%20from%20USB%20flash%20drive.html

You won't be able to add drivers to ESX unless they come from VMware, but you should probably be able to get the ICH9r controller to work. It may just not work with it setup as a RAID array.

Dave...

Thank you for the follow... I dont recall seeing the 82801GR/GH as an option on the list. I'll take a look when I get home tonight. Maybe my best bet would be to purchase an LSI MegaRAID 154-4 controller. It "appears" as though no one is having any issues with it. That plus its on the HCL as well.

Thanks again, Rick

I haven't tried 3i with a PC that doesn't have Intel VT, but it should work. The big thing will be what SATA controller your laptop has and if the BIOS supports booting from a flash drive. If the SATA controller is not recognized by 3i then you won't be able to use the local hard drive. Likewise for the built in NIC. 3i doesn't have any usuable GUI so if you do manage to get it to working you'll need any PC to run the VI client to manage the 3i host. You may have seen posts about running ESX in a vm on VMware Workstation, but this does require a processor with Intel VT or the AMD equivalent.

Yes, but you can't start a VM on an ESX 3i or 3.5 host VM. You can with ESX 3.0.x.

Hello:

I'm not able to install latest ESX 3.5 build 64607.Installer doesn't identify any network devices.

DO i have to install new NIC?

It has netstream 57XX...same as dell precision 490; on which esx 3.5 runs fine.

Please Advice.