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VMware Homeserver – ESXi on 5th Gen Intel NUC

Intel NUCs are not officially supported by VMware but they are very widespread in many homlabs or test environments. They are small, silent, transportable and have a very low power consumption, making it a great server for your homelab. I've posted a preview at the beginning of the year and got my first 5th Gen NUC up and running in February. Today all versions of the NUC, including the flagship with the i7 CPU, are available in the market. Time to give it a more detailed review

esxi-5th-gen-nuc

5th Gen Intel NUCs are available with an Intel i3, i5 or i7 CPU. The Intel i3 and i5 are available with and without 2.5" slot where the i7 is only available with 2.5". With the NUC5i5MYHE there is also a i5 model with a faster vPro CPU.

Features5th-gen-nuc-parts

The Kits are shipped with:

  • Chassis
  • System board
  • Processor (soldered)
  • Power adapter
  • Power cord

To get an ESXi Host installed you need:

  • Memory (1.35V SODIMM Memory)
  • M.2 SSD (22×24, 22×60 and 22×80), 2,5″ HDD or USB-Stick

Model comparison

In my opinion, the best candidates for ESXi are the i5, i5 with vPro and i7 models. You should definately get one with an 2.5" slot.

Model (2.5")NUC5i7RYHNUC5i5RYHNUC5i5MYHENUC5i3RYHNUC5i3MYHE
no 2.5" Slot n/aNUC5i5RYKn/aNUC5i3RYKn/a
ArchitectureBroadwell (14 nm)
CPUi7-5557Ui5-5250Ui5-5300U vProi3-5010Ui3-5010U
Base Frequency 3.1 GHz1.6 GHz2.3 GHz2.1 GHz2.1 GHz
Max Frequency 3.4 GHz2.7 GHz2.9 GHz2.1 GHz2.1 GHz
Cores2 (4 Threads)
TDP 28 W15 W
Memory TypeDDR3L SODIMM 1.35V
1333/1600/1866 MHz
Max Memory16GB
USB Ports2x USB 3.0 (front panel)
2x USB 3.0 (back panel)
2x USB 2.0 (internal)
StorageM.2 SSD Card
SATA3 2.5" HDD/SDD
Wireless LAN YesYesNoYesNo
Bluetooth YesYesNoYesNo
Gigabit LANYesYesYesYesYes
Intel VT-dYesYesYesYesYes
Intel VT-xYesYesYesYesYes
Price$480$370$440$280$290

HCL and VMware ESXi Support

All NUCs have hardware support for virtualization and a 64-bit capable CPU. Therefore it should be compatible to VMware ESXi.

To clarify, the system is not supported by VMware (Not listed in HCL), so do not use this system in a productive environment. I can not guarantee that it will work stable. As a home lab, or a small home server it should be fine.

For ESXi 5.x you have to create a customized image or the installer will fail with an "No Network Adapters" error message. VMware ESXi 6.0 has the network drivers included.

Tested ESXi Versions

  • VMware ESXi 5.0
  • VMware ESXi 5.1
  • VMware ESXi 5.5
  • VMware ESXi 6.0

Delivery and assembly

The 5th Gen NUC is shipped in well designed box. The Box contains a short description how to open and assemble the components. The system is a little bit heavier than it looks and has a high build quality. The upside is scratch-sensitive, so be careful with it.

The installation is very simple. Remove 4 screws on the bottom and remove the lid which is also the 2.5" drive holder. The assembly takes about 5 Minutes to open the NUC, install the memory, M.SSD module and an 2.5" HDD.

5th-gen-nuc-installation

Installation

The installation of VMware ESXi 5.x fails due to missing network drivers. ESXi 6 works out of the box, but there is a problem with the AHCI controller. Therefore you have to create a customized Image for all versions.

If you see a malformed Manufacturer and Model in the vSphere Client, here is a fix for you.
5th-gen-nuc-manufacturer-problemjpg

32GB Memoy with 5th Gen NUC?

There are reports that the 5th Gen NUC works with 32GB of memory if you use Intelligent Memory 16GB SO-DIMMs. I can't verify that with ESXi at the moment as these modules are not available here. I also doubt that it makes sense at the moment as the 16 GB I'M SO-DIMMS are very expensive at the moment, but technically it should be possible.

Power consumption

Power consumption differs a little bit based on the model.

i5 NUC: 7W (idle) - 33W (load)
i7 NUC: 8W (idle) - 45W (load)

During normal usage, the average consumption is about 18W.

With that, the average operating costs are about 3-4 Euros per month:
18 watt * 24 h * 30 (days) = 12,96 KWh * 0,25 (EUR) = 3,24 EUR
Consumption measured with Voltcraft Energy Monitor 3000

27 thoughts on “VMware Homeserver – ESXi on 5th Gen Intel NUC”

  1. Great update, are you using these at home? what does your setup consist of and how well are they performing (what sort of setup s/w wise have you gone for?)

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  3. Hello!

    My CPU info in Ubuntu show roughly 1600 mhz. Does ESXi support speedstep on its virtual machines? I know that you can set Power Management to High Performance, but i'd rather not, since it just draws more power.

    Is it just because Ubuntu can't show a dynamic cpu speed or?

    Kind regards Jacob

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  5. Just tried it with a NUC BOXNUC5I7RYH (i7 5557U) and two IM 16Gb module (so 32GB in total), a 1TB sata SSB + a 256GB M.2 ssd
    Worked like a charme
    Thanks

    ps : not sure about the cost efficiency of all that ... but I had the RAM and SSD not beeing used for anything ... so

  6. Hi Florian, did you tested to upgrade a NUC already installed with ESXi 6.0 (custom image, custom ETH drivers) to the latest ESXi build) to 6.0U1 ? got the upgrade zip as well as the full 6.0U1 ISO file but i'd better do the upgrade once rather than having my host without network access.. Thanks a lot for your blog it's really a great resource. cheers. bd

    1. Yes. My NUC is currently running on the latest 6.0u1:

      [root@esx5:~] vmware -v
      VMware ESXi 6.0.0 build-3073146

      It does not remove custom drivers when you use the upgrade zip and install it with "esxcli software vib install -d [.zip]"

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  8. Thanks for this NUC walkthrough, very useful. However, I can't get my NUC to see the local M.2 SSD? Where am I going wrong? Using a Samsung MZHPV512HDGL-00000 512 GB Internal.

    Thanks, AS.

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  11. I'm running ESXi 6 on my NUC5i7 and it has been great but will occasionally becoming unresponsive and furthermore, it will cause a network issue to the point where I can't ping other devices on the network. If I unplug the NUC, pings restore. A reboot of the NUC brings it back online. Today I installed the latest patch 6.02, so I am hoping for some relief. This might happen once ever 1-2 months. I used the installation guide from this site and also applied the BIOS fix.
    Any ideas?

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  13. Hi,
    thanks for all the information - my NUC is no running as an esxi server. I'm trying to get the vCenter Appliance installed on the server, but the installer is complaining about "An error occured during getting HW-informaitons from the esx-host" (The error message was in german "Beim Abrufen der Hardwareinformationen vom ESX-Host ist ein Fehler aufgetreten"). Any idea ?
    If I connect via vSpeher Client, Model and Vendor is displayed as a long list of ?

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