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ESXi

Adding a second NIC to a 5th Gen Intel NUC (Or other PCIe Cards)

NUC5i5MYHE-with-external-nic-squareIntel NUCs with ESXi are being used as home servers and in many home labs. If you are generally interested in running ESXi on Intel NUCs, read this post first. One major drawback is that they only have a single network port. There are USB NICs in the market, but with ESXi hosts, only work in path-through mode. That means that USB NICs can only be used inside VMs and not for the hypervisor itself as vmnic.

The slightly older 4th Gen NUCs had a Mini PCIe slot that allowed an additional NIC to be installed. With that port, it was possible to install a Syba Mini PCIe NIC for example. Nevertheless, the adapter is unsupported with ESXi and did not fit into the NUC chassis, there are solutions.

Unfortunately, the 5th Gen NUC no longer has a Mini PCIe slot. Instead, it has M.2 slots. An easy solution would be a M.2 NIC, but until today there are no such cards available. In this post, I will explain the possibilities of using PCIe cards with the M.2 slot to upgrade the 5th Gen NUC with additional NICs or other cards like Fibre Channel HBAs.

Read More »Adding a second NIC to a 5th Gen Intel NUC (Or other PCIe Cards)

VMware vSphere 5.5 Update 3 Released

VMware has just released vSphere 5.5 Update 3. Together with the Updates, the following products were released today:

If you want to get notified about new products, subscribe to my vTracker RSS Feed.

Read More »VMware vSphere 5.5 Update 3 Released

VMware vSphere 6.0 Update 1 Released

VMware has just released vSphere 6.0 Update 1. Together with the Updates, the following products were released today:

If you want to get notified about new products, subscribe to my vTracker RSS Feed.

Read More »VMware vSphere 6.0 Update 1 Released

VMware ESXi 6.0 - Unsupported Hardware (All Vendors)

hcl-60-300x250-full-listDouble check your vendor support when updating ESXi hosts from VMware vSphere 5.5 to 6.0. There are a lot of systems that are no longer supported. The following servers were supported in 5.5 U2 but are according to the VMware HCL no longer supported in vSphere 6.0.

Your server is listed and you want to upgrade? Don't panic.

  • Not supported does not mean that it does not work.
  • Servers get certified by their vendor, not VMware. If you want a server to get certified, ask your vendor.
  • Did I miss something? Please comment.

Last Update: September 10, 2015

This post contains a sortable and searchable list containing all vendors. It extends the shortlist of widley used servers I maintain since the vSphere 6.0 release.

Read More »VMware ESXi 6.0 - Unsupported Hardware (All Vendors)

VMware ESXi 3.5 - 6.0 Hypervisor Size Comparison

The first public release of VMwares bare-metal hypervisor ESXi was about 7 years ago. During that time we had lots of new features, including the latest outstanding introduction in vSphere 6.0 - Virtual Volumes. This post takes a look at how the hypervisor footprint has changed since ESXi 3.5.

  • ESXi 3.5 - 46,01 MB
  • ESXi 4.0 - 59,99 MB
  • ESXi 4.1 - 85,19 MB
  • ESXi 5.0 - 132,75 MB
  • ESXi 5.1 - 125,85 MB
  • ESXi 5.5 - 151,98 MB
  • ESXi 6.0 - 154,90 MB

vmware-hypervisor-size-history

Read More »VMware ESXi 3.5 - 6.0 Hypervisor Size Comparison

ESXi 6.0 Image for Intel NUC

ESXi 6.0 requires a little tweak to run without problems on an Intel NUC. This post explains how to create a customized ESXi 6 ISO for your 4th and 5th gen. Intel NUC. The images can be used to do a fresh install or upgrade a NUC to VMware ESXi 6.0.esxi-on-5th-gen-NUC5i3MYHE

The Image works for the following NUCs:

  • Intel NUC D54250WYK
  • Intel NUC D34010WYK
  • Intel NUC D54250WYKH
  • Intel NUC D34010WYKH
  • Intel NUC5i7RYH
  • Intel NUC5i5RYH
  • Intel NUC5i5MYHE
  • Intel NUC5i5RYK
  • Intel NUC5i3RYH
  • Intel NUC5i3MYHE
  • Intel NUC5i3RYK

Read More »ESXi 6.0 Image for Intel NUC

VMware ESXi 6.0 - Unsupported Hardware

hcl-60Double check your vendor support when updating ESXi hosts from VMware vSphere 5.5 to 6.0. There are a lot of systems that are no longer supported. The following servers were supported in 5.5 but are according to the VMware HCL no longer supported in vSphere 6.0.

Your server is listed and you want to upgrade? Don't panic.

  • Usually, the list gets smaller a couple of weeks after a new vSphere version has been released. I will update this post when I notice changes.
  • Not supported does not mean that it does not work.
  • Servers get certified by their vendor, not VMware. If you want a server to get certified, ask your vendor.
  • Vendor support matrices and VMware HCL have some mismatches at the moment (HP and IBM). Servers are listed at the bottom. Please ask your vendor or VMware if you are allowed to upgrade.
  • Did I miss something? Please comment.

Last Update: May 2, 2018

Read More »VMware ESXi 6.0 - Unsupported Hardware

Free ESXi 6.0 - How to Download and get License Keys

vSphere 6.0 has been released and VMware provides a free version of their Hypervisor ESXi for everyone again. The license key can be created for free at VMwares website. It has no expiration date. The binaries you will receive as "Free Hypervisor" are 100% identical to the paid version.

Limitations

  • No support
  • Free ESXi cannot be added to a vCenter Server
  • 2 physical CPUs
  • Unlimited cores per CPU
  • Unlimited physical Memory
  • max. 8 vCPU per VM

Read More »Free ESXi 6.0 - How to Download and get License Keys

ESXi 6.0 - ESXCLI Command Mindmap

In vSphere 6.0 the command line interface esxcli has 2 new namespaces. The esxcli is a complete set of commands that you can use for troubleshooting, configuration or kickstart files. I have created and printed a mindmap to navigate through the namespaces more quickly. This post covers only basic namespaces, available on all ESXi 6.0 hosts. If you've installed additional software you might see more namespaces. I've also created a mindmap for ESXi 5.1 and ESXi 5.5.

ESXCLI in version 6.0 has 15 namespaces:Read More »ESXi 6.0 - ESXCLI Command Mindmap