VMware Cloud Community
gi-minni
Contributor
Contributor

Can I expect support for ICH8(M) IDE/SATA Controller?

I tried ESXi 3.5 Update 1 on a laptop with ICH7 controller and it works fine. This laptop has the centrino chipset.

But trying the same on a newer laptop with the centrino pro chipset with 4 GB RAM and and ICH8M chipset the SATA controller will not be recognized even in SATA AHCI native mode. My question is there a chance in having this support in later firmware updates? My deviceID is 8086:2828.

Regards

gi-minni

Reply
0 Kudos
10 Replies
jhanekom
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Not very likely. ESX currently only officially supports SAS controllers, and it's unlikely to change.

You may have more success installing VMware ESX inside of VMware workstation on your laptop. There are numerous threads on the forums on how to achieve this. This site also has some guides on the topic: http://www.xtravirt.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=99&Itemid=124

Reply
0 Kudos
gi-minni
Contributor
Contributor

ok, thx for pointing me to virtualizing esxi server inside Workstation 6,

but I am afraid that this could be a performance bottleneck and this

kind of support does not exist anymore in Workstation 6.5 due to performance constrains.

I could find a list with supported ICH7 boards around here

and I can report that my laptop with ICH7 chipset and e1000 network support is running fine,

having a local vmfs3 datastore stored on the internal SATA disk.

But only the newer laptops with centrino pro chipset can address all the 4GB RAM space.

And booting from such a machine the vmkernel can address all the max. amount of RAM.

This is the reason why I am asking for ICH8(M) support inside the esx 3i vmkernel.

Is there someone from the vmware people that can tell more about that?

Reply
0 Kudos
jhanekom
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Nice list. However, take care to not confuse "supported" with "functional."

If you're interested in performance, ESX on a laptop is probably not a good starting point in the first place... what are your goals in getting it to work?

(...there's a Workstation 6.5?)

Reply
0 Kudos
Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

As mentioned ESX works with a number of SATA controllers but will not likely be ever supported by VMware. That said, the PCI map file for ESXi does list 8086:2828 using the ata_piix driver. Do you have any other modes for the SATA controller (native / IDE)? How are you obtaining the PCI id?

Reply
0 Kudos
ocremel
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Yes we add support for newer ICH regularly.

Reply
0 Kudos
gi-minni
Contributor
Contributor

> what are your goals in getting it to work?

We have a big ESX clusterfarm with several server running Converter, DRS, HA, Consolidated Backup feature.

My Idea is to develop, work and demo VMware instances inside the above mentioned environment and if I have an inhouse workshop use this environment accordingly.

At the time I need to attend a fair or visit our customers. I need the ability to carry the VMware instances with me and also

beeing able to give our customer an onsite demonstration at their location. Then I exchange my internal working disk with a formatted vmfs3 datastore

move the VMware instance with VMotion to this local datastore and carry the laptop to my customer location and convince them to buy. Smiley Happy

Please think also about security,firewall, VPN, Network performance constraints. It is a pain to setup all this things correctly having more than one

VMware instances running.

IMHO it is better having the hole scenario thin and portable.

The only thing that I need is another laptop or workstation to manage VIC or our admin/devel/runtime GUI's.

But this last task is the no brainer" part of all Smiley Wink

> (...there's a Workstation 6.5?)

AFAIK there is an ongoing beta, and in the forum there is an info about removing the boot support for ESXi 3.5

Reply
0 Kudos
gi-minni
Contributor
Contributor

Hi Dave,

Do you have any other modes for the SATA controller (native / IDE)?

Yes, I have the ahci sata and compatibility (ide) mode

In ahci sata mode I cannot see anything, no controller, no vmhba at all

and no ahci module no ide module are loaded!

In compatibility mode I see the controller module ata_piix loaded (See below)

How are you obtaining the PCI id?

Going in tech support modus and executing lspci -pv.

The result of that is here. (the laptop is now in compatibility mode)

00:31.02 8086:2828 17aa:20a8 255/ /0x81 B V vmhba0

Executing esxcfg-module -l results in (excluding the rest):

ata_piix true true

I miss 00:31.02 8086:2828 17aa:20a8 255/ /0x81 B V ata_piix vmhba0

because looking on my other working laptop with the ICH7M chipset there

is the name of the loaded module between V and the vmhba's

Reply
0 Kudos
gi-minni
Contributor
Contributor

Yes we add support for newer ICH regularly.

Thx for your reply, I am kindly asking you at what time can we expect an update for ICH8(M)?

Reply
0 Kudos
ameyec
Contributor
Contributor

I just tried to install the ESXi free version on a system with ICH8M and it did not find any disks for install.

Really to bad Smiley Sad

Nobody any hints on drivers or workarounds to get ESXi working on a ICH8? IDE compatiblity mode is not an option, since my BIOS does not allow to set this. Anybody knows the schedule when this will be supported?

Reply
0 Kudos
Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

Take a look through this thread - http://communities.vmware.com/thread/158987?tstart=0

Reply
0 Kudos