ESXi on "desktop" machine

[djseto]

I've got a PC that I built and would like to run ESXi on it. I currently use it to run FreeNAS, so before I risk losing data, I want to make sure that an install is possible. I understand that my configuration is not supported since its not a Dell/HP server as listed in the Install Guide. The specs are as follows:

Intel Pentium Dual Core E220 CPU, 1GB (will expand to 4GB if this works), (4) 500GB SATA Drives, ECS Motherboard

Will ESXi even install on this?

[Dave_Mishchenko]

For the most part your NIC and storage controller will determine if ESXi will be able to install and run on the host or not. Take a look at the whitebox hcl and the hardware list on this site www.vm-help.com to see if ESXi will recoginze your hardware.

[JMills]

If you can provide the specific ECS motherboard model number, I can take a peek at the chipset descriptions as well.

[djseto]

ECS 7050VT-M v.10

Based on what I found, I dont think my hardware is supported

[JMills]

What you have is an ECS GF7050VT-M (rev 1), which has an nVidia based SATA controller, and a Realtek 10/100 NIC.

The SATA controller -might- work, I need to hunt down the PCI Vendor ID / Device ID data for that motherboard to be able to answer with more certainty. I searched and was unable to find anyone who had posted the `lspci -n` (or better) output for that particular motherboard.

The onboard NIC will -not- work, we don't have Realtek drivers available for ESXi.

http://www.ecsusa.com/ECSWebSite/Products/ProductsDetail.aspx?detailid=838&CategoryID=1&DetailName=S...

Adding a pair of Intel e1000 PCI boards is viable, at ~$40/each, but only if the SATA controller works.

[stuléman]

Intresting thread... happy to see other users that consider ESXi as a desktop solution too!

I have an ASUS P5Q-EM motherboard (on-board video and LAN) with an Intel Core2 Quad and 4GB RAM. Likewise, I'd love to get ESXi on there as my first layer, and put XP, Media Center, and Linux up side-by-side. I'm curious not only about basic driver support, but configuring the 2 SATA disks I have in RAID1 in BIOS... would that work (for WinXP I need RAID drivers)? Or can I actually use ESXi to provide the layer of disk mirroring? Also, when I plug-in a firewire camcorder or an eSata disk, will these kinds of devices be visible in all guest OS's that support them?

Chipset is Intel G45 / ICH10R

RAID uses Intel Matrix Storage Technology

NIC is Realtek 8111C PCI-E

Audio is Realtek ALC 1200 8 -Channel

Firewire is Agere L-FW3227 controller

http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=2413&l1=3&l2=11&l3=761&l4=0

Thanks in advance,

StuLéman

[djseto]

Thanks everyone for your help. At this time, I've decided to hold off on getting an ESXi machine up and running. I'll just keep running Fusion on my iMac.

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Welcome to the VMware Community forums. ESXi would mask the underlying storage from the VMs on the host, so it would be up to the ESXi driver to support the storage controller. In the case of "RAID" controllers like the Intel ICHxR or nVidia MCP series which require a software component, the drivers that ship with ESXi do not support that so you would only be access to access individual disks. Likewise, ESXi does not support pass through of USB or firewire devices to the VM (you can use USB over IP for USB devices) so going with VMware Workstation might be a better fit.