Which ESXi version is recommended for Xeon E3-1265L v2 CPU?

[itm]

I'm repurposing my Microserver Gen8 from a Lubuntu-based NAS to an ESXi host. I will shortly be upgrading it with a Xeon E3-1265L v2, 16GB RAM and a Samsung 870 QVO 1TB SSD. It has 4 SATA data drives, which I plan to leave in place, as one of my guest VMs will continue to act as a Lubuntu-based file server. I plan to put my guest VMs on the SSD.

I plan to have 2 guest VMs:
- Windows Server 2008 running Blue Iris IP camera monitoring software. This tends to be quite CPU-intensive
- Lubuntu 20.04 hosting the following:
- file server
- Logitech Media Server
- Home Assistant (home automation server)
- Mediawiki.

My questions are:
1. Which version of ESXi would be best for my needs? I have downloaded "HPE Gen9 Plus Custom Image for ESXi 6.7 Update 3" from the VMWare site in anticipation, as from reading other posts it seems that it might perform better than v7 with the SSD, but I'm not sure if that's definitive advice.
2. Would it make much difference whether I ran ESXi from a USB stick or an SD card?

 

[marv]

Both 6.7 and 7.0 are supported on Ivy bridge, but 7.0 has bigger system storage requirements, I think officially its 32GB minimum, unofficially it might fit to smaller drive. 6.7 reaches EOL in several months. So for new installation I suggest 7.0, BUT check if it has driver for your storage adapter if you use one. 7.0 dropped support for a lot of hardware.

I woudnt recommend using QLC SSD for VMs.

as for esxi storage, many consumer grade cards, same as cheap usb flash drives, tend to die after several months.
If you go with SD card, I recommend industrial grade like SDCIT2 from Kingston.
I am not aware of any industrial usb flash drives, but in past I successfuly used Sandisk ultra fit.

I dont use vendor custom images, there could be problems with upgrading them.

 

[BoredSysadmin]

This is older hardware. I'd recommend you stick with the latest ESXi 6.7. Like Marv said - QLC is no good to run VMs from.
For Hass - you'd be best served using it as VM deployment - otherwise, you'd be losing some major functionality.
Have you tried other NVRs besides Blue Iris? Shinobi or Frigate? Both could use Google Coral dongles and offload motion/facial recognition to free up CPU resources.

 

[itm]

Why are QLC SSD's not an option for running VMs?

 

[Evan]

Why are QLC SSD's not an option for running VMs?

the are slower but the main reason is they have limited write endurance. You put a few OS’s on a single drive and you would see it’s life shortened significantly. (Google write endurance)
TLC these days is fine though generally.

 

[BoredSysadmin]

because QLC is terrible for random I/O - which is what you need for running VMs.

QLC Goes To 8TB: Samsung 870 QVO and Sabrent Rocket Q 8TB SSDs Reviewed

www.anandtech.com

yes, and they also have a very short life span using it for this purpose. Compare TBW between decent TLC and QLC drive and you'll see.

 

[itm]

because QLC is terrible for random I/O - which is what you need for running VMs.

QLC Goes To 8TB: Samsung 870 QVO and Sabrent Rocket Q 8TB SSDs Reviewed

www.anandtech.com

yes, and they also have a very short life span using it for this purpose. Compare TBW between decent TLC and QLC drive and you'll see.

Would QLC actually be worse/slower than a conventional spinning HDD?
I'm planning to run 2 VM's, and to do the heavy-duty writes to an external (spinning) drive - i.e. the video from Blue Iris.
I doubt that I could get a refund on the Samsung QVO drive now, but if I could, is there a reasonably-priced alternative that would be appropriate for this sort of home use with ESXi? How would this compare, for example:

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/1tb-crucial-mx500-25-ssd-sata-iii-6gb-s-sm2258-3d-tlc-nand-read-560mb-s-write-510mb-s-95k-90k-iops-r

 

[Evan]

SSD will be better. For 2 VM’s just use it, if it doesn’t meet expectations change it in future.

 

[zer0sum]

ESXi 6.7 is a little more flexible with the type of hardware you can use with it, whereas 7.x seems to be getting more and more restrictive each version. They will both do exactly what you need them to do though.

Why not use Proxmox instead?

If you really need ESXi for some reason, you can just run it as a nested hypervisor

 

[itm]

ESXi 6.7 is a little more flexible with the type of hardware you can use with it, whereas 7.x seems to be getting more and more restrictive each version. They will both do exactly what you need them to do though.

Why not use Proxmox instead?

If you really need ESXi for some reason, you can just run it as a nested hypervisor

TBH I'd never heard of Proxmox. It sounds like it would need a bit more effort to set up, particularly as I want to pass through my drives to the guest VMs. Interesting though.