mikemcsw -- Texiwill is correct. With a PATA drive only you'll be able to install and boot into ESX but a PATA drive won't be able to store VMs. However...

Option 1: I looked at a Dell GX270 Mini-tower unit today on your behalf to check the built-in SATA controller. It's an Intel ICH5 and ESX will see it as an 82801EB SATA controller and use that SATA controller with an attached SATA 150 hard drive to store VMs on it if you attach a SATA I (SATA 150) drive to the GX270 SATA port. That would give you a self-contained GX270 machine that would run ESX 3.5 and also host the VMs.

Here are a few other options to consider if you want to go further:

Option 2: If you have Win2003 Server running on your other home computer (or if you have VMware Workstation on that computer and run Win2003 in a VM) you could download Microsoft's free Services For Unix (SFU) feature and make that Win2003 VM into an NFS server where your Dell GX270 ESX host could store VMs. This would also allow you to have shared storage in the event you get a 2nd ESX host and want to use a trial license for VMotion and learn the details of DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduler) and VMware HA (High Availability). This wouldn't be a screaming fast setup but it would get to going and allow you to learn the advanced features of ESX.

Option 3: If you're a Linux prone person you could just load up a separate computer with Fedora or CentOS (or put them in a VM on your other home computer running under VMware Workstation) and create an NFS share on that Fedora/CentOS box. Your Dell GX270 ESX machine will use that NFS space as a place to put VMs on it.

Option 4: xtravirt.com has written directions on how to rig up a separate iSCSI server (or an iSCSI server within a VM) where your ESX VMs can also be located (in addition to the NFS space option described in Option 2 and 3 above).

Datto

The SFF version also has the SATA1 port, on the system board near the power supply under the mess of IDE cables convered by a white plastic cap.

I have it booting off a 3.5u2refresh jump drive, with local VMFS on a SATA drive. You can't do much with a sinlge core P4 and 2gig of ram, but it does run.

Hello,

Two things going forward.... is the gx270 on the HCL (http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi35_systems_guide.pdf) and is the IO card that you are using for disk access on the IO HCL (http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi35_io_guide.pdf). If its an IDE controller it is definitely not on the HCL. Most of the SATA controllers for ESX are actually SAS/SATA controllers which implies they are actually SCSI controllers that so happen to speak SAS and SATA but NOT PATA.

If you want the whitebox gx270 to work, you should find a SCSI/RAID HBA that is on the IO HCL. Then you can at least have a VMFS available.

The most basic and important rule about ESX and systems or IO controllers, if the system is not on the HCL, then the IO controllers must be on the HCL. If the controller is not on the IO HCL, then do not use it.

Another option is to present the gx270 running ESX something from an NFS or iSCSI Server like Openfiler.


Best regards,
Edward L. Haletky
VMware Communities User Moderator
====
Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.
CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354
As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

Hello,

ok, slightly late in discussion, but here perhaps a helpfull experience:

I Tried to install the ESXi Server on a DELL GX270 Slimline system (for testing and studying purposes).

The ESXi Installer didn't like the original PATA harddisk ("No storage for installation available"). After exchangeing the PATA by a SATA device the ESXi installer did its work just fine. Also the onboard NIC is working.

Some details for the hardware changes:
(most of them are "usefull" but not vital for the successfull ESXi installation)

• Updated the BIOS to the current version "A07"
• Extended the memory to 2 GB
• Eliminated the PATA harddisk
• Inserted a 1 TB SATA 3 harddisk, attaching it to the onboard SATA connector. (For the current connector I've used an adapted cable)
• In the BIOS changed the storage settings to
  • SATA devices: AUTO (original is OFF)
  • PATA devices: DISABLED (original is ENABLE)

Not performing the last step would prevent the hardware to use the SATA device as primary boot device.

So now I'm curious about the performance ...

CU,
Josm