minimum hardware requirements for ESXi 5

[luckystarit]

Hi,

I'm a newbie to virtualization and ESXi so please help me on these issues:

I'm planning to host 1 Windows 2008 server and 1 Pfsense on the same host using ESXi. Both servers on serve a small number of users ( less than 10). The Win2k8 will just run small a .NET app and the Pfsense will just act as a router/gateway for web portal (no VPN, nothing fancy here).

I have checked the VMWare ESXi minimum requirements here (VMware KB: Minimum system requirements for installing ESXi/ESX) but still unsure before buying new equipment to run ESXi because the specs says ESXi only runs on 64 bits x86 CPU.

I'm looking at this PC :

CPU: Intel® Celeron® Processor 1037U (2M Cache, 1.80 GHz)

RAM: 8G RAM Support DDR3 2G/4G/8G/16G laptop memory, DDR3 1333/1600MHz

Storage: 64G SSD

Will ESXi install OK on this system ?

thanks

[cykVM · Accepted solution]

Hi,

from Intel's specs for the CPU http://ark.intel.com/products/71995/Intel-Celeron-Processor-1037U-2M-Cache-1_80-GHz this should generally work, but might cause performance issues as this Celeron has only 2 cores.

Another thing to consider is RAM, ESXi 5.5 OS takes about 4GB RAM out of the 8GB leaving you 4GB for the VMs. Windows 2008 with less than 4GB wil be pretty slow and sooner or later start swapping to disk.

Also the motherboard in use is something to check with HCL as at least the storage controller and the onboard NIC(s) should be compatible.

The easier road to go is to get server-level hardware which is listed in HCL, you may find refurbished/used systems being fully compatible. This would be much more reliable than building a whitebox system on desktop hardware.

cykVM

[GaneshNetworks]

ESXi will install OK in this system. But be ready to face performance issues.

[luckystarit]

thanks for the quick replies :smileylaugh:

I'm currently hosting the win2k8 .NET app on a Intel Dual Core and it performs fine, no issues at all for few months now. The Pfsense server will require additional 300MB of HDD and very little RAM like less than 2GB so that's why i want to consolidate these 2 servers into 1 box to safe space and power.

Maybe I will spend little extra to get the i3. Do you think that would definitely up to the job ?

thanks

[cykVM]

As said above, the first thing to check is the motherboard (chipset, storage controller, NIC(s)) for compatibility. If you run an unsupported storage controller you won't be able to install ESXi as it won't find the (local) disk/SSD.

Same applies to the (onboard) NICs, if ESXi doesn't have a driver for the NIC it will stop installation.

So it might give you a hard time searching and testing community supported drivers and creating self-made custom installation images.

Also, if this is a production system (and not home-lab, testing or any oher non-company use) you won't get any support from VMWare if you are in trouble.

As the actual config of the Win2k8/.NET is on physical hardware it might "perform fine" but with VMWare the physical hardware will be shared and if you run it on minimum requirements (especially for the CPU/cores and amount of RAM) you might face performance issues sooener or later. It's simply because you add the hypevisor level to your virtual servers.

[luckystarit]

thank you so much.

I may just buy a cheap box for the PfSense and leave the win2k8 on the existing box then... it sounds like it's not worth the hassle !

thank you.