ESXi 6 on older IBM (Lenovo) servers, will it work?

[HendersonD]

We have eight 3 year old HS23 blades. These were originally purchased from IBM but are now supported by Lenovo. This server is on VMWare's HCL as being compatible with ESXi 6.0 U1. Lenovo does have a customized image for ESXi 6.0 U1 here:

https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/details?downloadGroup=OEM-ESXI60U1B-LENOVO&productId=491

This is the link for the Lenovo Server Operating System Interoperability Guide

https://lenovopress.com/pdfs/1090/redposig.pdf

On page 80 of this guide it shows the HS23 (7875) being compatible with ESXi 6.0 Update 1. The concern is on page 79 of this guide where there is a caution:

"No custom image support: The servers in Table 5-4 do not support any of the Lenovo custom images for VMware ESXi that are currently available on the VMware web site."

It is a weird catch 22. Lenovo supports running ESXi 6 on these servers but says its customized image does not support these servers. Has anyone successfully installed ESXi 6 on older IBM (Lenovo) hardware?

[HendersonD]

We ended up using the Lenovo customized image even though the Lenovo guide says it is not supported. We did an install, not and upgrade of the hosts and it is working fine

[rcporto]

It supposed to works but take in mind that you will not able to get support from Lenovo/VMware if you have problems. I have success installing vSphere ESXi 6 in old IBM blades even without use the customized ISO.