vmware ESXi 8 Hardware recommendations

[kev2024]

Hi all,

I have a HP Microserver gen 10+ version 1 and it seems that only v2 of this server is supported on ESXi 8.

Does anyone know if there is a way to update version 1 to version 2 or do I simply need to purchase version 2 of this server or an alternative?

I bought gen10+ only a year or two ago and and had to then buy a raid card etc on top to get esxi 7 to work as it said needed hardware raid, not software raid. Will the same Raid card work in gen10+ v2? I have HPE smartarray E208i-p raid card, not overly cheap.

I have seen some supermicro servers seem to be compatible with more versions of esxi so am wondering is that a better choice? Any they more noisier than then microserver? such as the E300-9D-4CN8TP ?

Thanks for any suggesions. My esxi 7 doesn't have support for win11, even though I updated to ESXi 7.0u3, still no vTPM option, Do i need to have vcenter to get that option? The memory limitation is not ideal on the gen10+ v1, 32GB max and if i need vcenter, that is recommended 12gb ram? don't really have the excess memory for that and don't want 2 boxes etc.

Thanks for any suggestions

Kev

 

[zachj]

Support for Virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM) on ESXi without vCenter Server?

Starting with vSphere 6.7, users have been able to add a Virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM) to a VM, enabling guest operating systems to create and store private keys using a software-based rep…

williamlam.com

 

[zachj]

VMware dropped support for hardware moving from v7 to v8 but. It didn’t do anything to brick functionality…it’s not the same as moving from v6 to v7 where they changed the driver stack and hardware without a new driver just simply wouldn’t work.

They did drop support for older cpus but there’s a boot argument to skip the check.

 

[nickwalt]

I'm one of the many people who have built a quiet server out of used components from Chinese data centers. The great thing about these components is that they came from controlled environments with regulated temperature, conditioned power, free of moisture and dust - and the components have often passed their most-likely-to-fail periods. They get tested by the ebays store and the buyers can develop a relationship with that particular store along with many others on this forum.

I purchased a Supermicro H12SSL-i (new) with a used Rome Epyc 32 core CPU and have over time added 384GB RDIMM memory (6 x 64GB modules) and all components are accepted by ESXi.

That big card is an ASUS Hyper M.2 X16 Gen 4 bifurcated on the x16 slot, containing 4 x4 M.2 NVME slots.

 

[kev2024]

Hi all,
Just getting back to this. I see there is now a HP microserver gen 11 out which supports up to 128GB ram, much more usable as my existing gen 10 v1 is basically maxed out and using 31Gb of the max 32Gb.... so its a bit painful to use.

So my questions is, does vmware esxi 8 still need a raid card to work as previous version did as I don't want to boot esxi off a USB stick as it is on 24/7/365 so prefer to have the OS mirrored between 2 drives and then I have 2 drives which contain the VMs.

128GB is suitable for my requirements as it means i can give existing devices more ran where needed and will also allow for win11 and hopefully win 12 images to be deployed for testing purposes etc.

If I do still require a raid card, will the one I purchased for the gen 10 v1 ( HPE smart array E208i-p raid card ) be suitable or do I need a different one?

Just looking to get an idea of price for all this as I see the newer microserver gen 11 is more expensive than previous versions so want to get an idea of numbers and then decide if worth doing, bearing in mind I can potentially hopefully sell the gen 10 and get a bit of money back, albeit a bare unit.

Thanks all

Kev

 

[Greg_E]

I have vSphere 8.0.2 running on little HP T740 with 64gb of ddr4 sodimm, a 128gb sata m.2 drive, and a consumer 1tb m.2 nvme drive. You'd need a network card as there are no Realtek allowed now. I put in Supermicro dual SFP+ cards for 10gbps connections. Even vCenter didn't complain. I have two of them upgraded to 8.0.3, need to configure vMotion to move vCenter so it's easier to upgrade the third host.

Keep in mind, this is all on a 1 year license through VMUG, I'm going to need to pass a VCP level course to keep that license.

 

[kev2024]

Thanks, interesting. I'm considering the microserver gen 11, anyone know if the raid card HPE smart array E208i-p raid card is compatible wit the microserver gen 10 and vmware 8?

Thanks

Kev

 

[zachj]

If you want RAID then you’ll need a RAID card; ESXi doesn’t include a built-in software RAID functionality. VMware offers vSAN but it requires vcenter and on a single host it only supports RAID0; RAID1/5/10 require three or more hosts.

ESXi does officially support Intel VROC if your motherboard happens to support it, though this isn’t a well-trod path so you’re not going to find a ton of help online.

As far as your specific HPE RAID adapter, check VMware’s hardware compatibility list. Even if it says it’s not supported in 8.x, if it worked in 7.x it’ll work on 8.x too.

 

[kev2024]

Thanks, I have the card in my Gen 10 microserver running esxi 7 and works ok. Weirdly, the card according to the docs that is supported is the HPE Smart Array E208e-p SR Gen10 controller and I have the HPE Smart Array E208i-p so I presume I = internal and e = external as the ports on the e are at the back of the case to plug in whereas the I is inside the case? But it doesn't specify this card is compatible with gen 11 microserver or esxi 8.x hence not sure and I don't want to buy the microserever gen 11 as its a high price tag and then find out I need to buy a raid card as well as they are costly too. I realise I'll need a NIC card but not expecting that to be too costly, just need to find a decent intel one.

Currently have 2 drives mirrored for ESXi boot and 2 drives mirrored for data (3.5" SATA drives) but may consider changing to SSDs as cost of those has come down some what.

Kev

 

[zachj]

If it works in v7 it’ll work on v8.

VMware changed the driver model when moving from v6 to v7 and that rendered a bunch of hardware incompatible with v7, but thankfully the same is not true when moving from v7 to v8.

it might not be officially supported but it works. I’ve got several vibs (drivers) installed on my v8 machine.

 

[jwalk]

I have vSphere 8.0.2 running on little HP T740 with 64gb of ddr4 sodimm, a 128gb sata m.2 drive, and a consumer 1tb m.2 nvme drive. You'd need a network card as there are no Realtek allowed now. I put in Supermicro dual SFP+ cards for 10gbps connections. Even vCenter didn't complain. I have two of them upgraded to 8.0.3, need to configure vMotion to move vCenter so it's easier to upgrade the third host.

Keep in mind, this is all on a 1 year license through VMUG, I'm going to need to pass a VCP level course to keep that license.

Hello Greg,

Are you able to attach any link that shows the HP T740? I'm looking for something compact that can run ESXi 8 to practice/study on for certification.

Thanks,
JWalk

 

[Greg_E]

At the bottom of this link https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/mini-truenas-server-build.46107/

And hurry, Broadcom is not doing any of us any favors. Updates are switching to a new token based method which is going to make it much harder for VMUG Advantage members to update their labs unless they have their VMUG --> Broadcom accounts straight, mine is a mess and I have a feeling it is going to stay that way. I have a feeling Broadcom is not going to allow non-corporate email addresses, and probably only addresses that have an active account with them. Gmail no longer works! Even though this was brought up in a webcall and still probably working. I bought a domain recently for this and will give it one more try before really handing them a ration of grief. Nutanix let me us this new address to get their product, just did that this morning as it is "next on my list" if I can ever find the time to certify for the new VCP-VVF or VCP-VCF (lowest certs going forward).

 

[zachj]

What’s really upsetting is they’re retiring the unauthenticated patch/update URLs…bcom are definitely serious about making sure they destroy VMware as hard as possible.

 

[Greg_E]

It's kind of a gate keeping thing, don't want us unwashed masses learning and elevating ourselves. Soon the only way to get it will be to work for a company large enough to use them. As I learn more and do more with my lab, I can say that XCP-ng is many times more simple to get a system running.

 

[zachj]

I’m probably biased because I worked for VMware but I think ESXi is about as simple as ABC. Things like pci device passthrough are much harder in hyper-v and in the Linux hypervisors.

 

[Greg_E]

ESXi is indeed pretty easy, when you throw vCenter on top and things really take a turn. And I'm understanding why as I learn more, but not easy to get going without access to training. NFS v4.1 was the latest trip up, some things allow this in an unsecured way, vCenter requires kerberos. I went back to NVF v3 for now until I can get the everything set up on my DC.

Device pass through is getting better on XCP-ng, but not to the same level as vSphere, it just isn't there yet. it probably won't get there until they release XCP-ng version 9 based on Alma 10 so we get a newer kernel. Lots of features should then be available with the newer kernel.

Not that this is wonderful, but I was able to finally make an account with Nutanix, jump through a few hoops of confirmations, and have the CE product. Jump through a couple more simple hoops and I'm enrolled in their on demand training. The key thing being no free email accounts, and they are pretty up front about that. I think VMUG will need to take that same stance so that things can align with Broadcom's new policy.

I also think that when you pay for Advantage, that you should still be able to get what was once Enterprise+ so you can train. Look at what Microsoft has for their products, all of the OS can be run for free, download with an email (not sure if free accounts work for this), they have some training available, but there are plenty of choices for books and on demand videos out there that I'll cut them some slack.

Broadcom tightened their grip, they seem to only want Million + dollar accounts, they've relaxed that a bit, but they need to relax the training side a little too. And I think they are heading there, I don't think it is the long term employees making these calls as they understand a strong community makes a more profitable product. But Broadcom does not think this way, they work like an investment company and squeeze the life out of something for profit and move on.

Long rant, sorry for the off topic, hopefully someone from VMware will read it. Yes, I'm getting frustrated and so are many other people, and these people are moving away to "something else". Key point, not everyone needs the full Cloud Foundation features, my work doesn't.

 

[zachj]

Broadcom is essentially a publicly traded private equity firm. Unless they sell VMware—which I doubt they will—there is 0.0000% chance that bcom relent on running VMware into the ground.

their plan isn’t to make VMware long-term viable; it’s to milk it for profit until it’s dead.

with the existence of multiple perfectly cromulent paid and FOSS virtualization solutions, there is utterly no need for VMware to continue to exist from a pure technology perspective. The ONLY reason VMware hasn’t already gone out of business (before the dell and bcom acquisitions) is simply the high cost of migrating off of VMware. Bcom aren’t stupid. They’re fully aware VMware is a dying business and they’re fully aware that their business plan will hasten VMware’s death—bcom doesn’t care. Dying companies can still be profitable for many years…

bcom’s sole interest in VMware is to earn their target rate of return on their investment between now and bankruptcy.

 

[Greg_E]

Unfortunately, I have to agree with you about what I perceive to be the bcom strategy.

 

[nabsltd]

Bcom aren’t stupid. They’re fully aware VMware is a dying business

These two statements are opposites.

VMware wasn't a "dying business" until Broadcom bought it. Now, VMware is losing all the small to medium clients, who made up a good chunk of their revenue. To offset this, Broadcom is raising prices for their remaining customers. I suspect that enough of them will not want to pay that they will find a way to move to another hypervisor. This is what is causing VMware to be a "dying business".

So, Broadcom is often quite stupid, and the way they handled the VMware acquisition is one of the biggest examples.

 

[Greg_E]

Not to turn this into a bcom rant, but they have no desire to handle 30 small state college contracts, that's too much work. Four or five 16 core servers is just not worth it. Pushing that up by combining all of these into one contract of 26,000 cores is something they are willing to do, not sure it made any real difference in price, they are still only offering VCF, take it or leave it. And guess what, a lot of places took it, so bcom won. The increases will balance out all the people that left, their balance sheet is probably a net growth for this year. And most of these companies are forced to sign 3 year contracts to get a decent price.

Going forward into 2028 might be interesting though, that might be where everyone has figured out what they are going to do, and fall off that cliff!