ESXi is free - running 2 ESXi 7 is also free. Running vCenter puts you into a range where other folks buy second hand cars.
To run VMs safely all you need is to avoid thin provisioning - you sre do not need vCenter ....
Ulli
________________________________________________ Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow" I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...