Does Synology E10M20-T1 10Gbe/NVMe card work in ESXi ?

[haregh19]

Synology E10M20-T1 is an interesting card with both NVMe and 10gbe particularly since it saves a slot on the motherboard. I want to pass through the NVMe SSDs to a FreeNAS VM.



Hence want to get feedback if this card works in ESXi ?



Also what is the network chip used in this card ?



Thanks for the help!

 

[BlueFox]

Network chip is a Aquantia AQC107 last I checked. In theory it should work on any system given that the card has an integrated PCIe switch, however I have no first hand experience to confirm.

 

[haregh19]

Thanks @BlueFox! That's promising.. AQC107 seems to be the same chip used in Mac Mini which has a driver available ( as per Aquantia 10GbE ESXi Driver for Apple 2018 Mac Mini )

 

[sfu420]

@haregh19 Did you manage to get working this card on ESXi?

 

[haregh19]

No I did not get to try this - I went a different way ( I bought a NAS instead ) of setting up a FreeNAS in a VM.

 

[haregh19]

Looks like someone did try this and it worked w/ some caveats on the choice of NVMe drives ( Will Synology E10M20-T1 10Gbe/NVMe card work in ESXi ? )

 

[zer0sum]

I'm surprised there isn't more talk about this card.

I am thinking of grabbing one and putting in my X470D4U running UnRaid and nested ESXi