Which driver to choose | ESXi 6.5 Elxnet

[stowny]

Hi all,

I just wanted to download the latest driver for my ESXi hosts from vmware.com.

Then I got a little bit confused, the version numbers of the Emulex driver 'elxnet' are decrementing.

Example:

11.1.196.3      Release Date    2016-09-30

12.0.1115.0    Release Date    2018-04-12

11.1.183.654  Release Date    2018-06-08

Which driver should I choose?

[GayathriS]

Could you provide  the complete model name of adapter for which you are looking for drivers.

regards

Gayathri

[stowny]

We are using both Lenovo/IBM branded Emulex OneConnect OCe11100 and Emulex OneConnect OCe14000 in our hosts.

According to the download page the same driver (elxnet) should be applicable to both models:

This Emulex driver enables support for Emulex's OCe11x (DID:0710), OCe14x (DID:0720). Emulex VID:19a2/10df and SVID:10df.

This driver also supports Emulex's equivalent OEM-Branded versions.

What citeria should i use to determin the latest driver? The release date or the version number...

[vmjoe]

Since I have a similiar issue: check the supported driver version for the specific card!

VMware Compatibility Guide - System Search

In my case (HPE FlexFabric 554M card) I had to use an "older" driver (at least by version number); the latest driver is unstable (and not listed on VMware compatibility page).

If the 12* driver is listed, I would try it (the 11* is maybe a hotfix for an older driver branch).