Compatible NICs & SATA RAID... Anyone have these working?

[LTek_llc]

NICS...[/b]

Marvell 88E8053 gigabit

Realtek RTL811B gigabit

SATA RAID...[/b]

Intel ICH7R

other desktop chipset?

[masaki]

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_io_guide.pdf

NOTE IDE RAID and SATA RAID are not supported for the VMFS file system.

In VMTN:

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=625998&#625998

says that certificated SANs with SATA disks have no probs.

Furthermore you can see SATA FAQS here :

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=360768

[LTek_llc]

I've seen that info but I'm not interested in what is "supported" - this machine will serve several purposes, only one being ESX.

So... if anyone has tried/tested/used these NIC and SATA chipsets in an ESX machine and knows if they do or do not work please let me know

Much appreciated!

[oreeh]

none of these work since the drivers aren't available in ESX

[masaki]

What do you mean with: this machine will serve several purposes, only one being ESX. ???

Are you testing several OS environments?

[LTek_llc]

It will have multiple purposes... ESX one day, Vista another, etc.

[Jae_Ellers]

Most of the time with ESX supported with respect to hardware means function, especially when it comes to disk controllers.

There are a couple LSI controllers that use SATA disks that function under the LSI scsi driver. Otherwise you need a scsi controller off of the hcl: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_io_guide.pdf.

This is usually the biggest drawback for someone who's just trying to kick the tires.

There are also some guides to creating a whitebox ESX server and several threads regarding this.