SATA started to get friendly with ESXi 3.5u4, before that you had to mess about with installation ISO, then boot from a nix live CD to copy the oem.tgz file over to the box when it was installed to get it to work.
ESXi 4 is a different animal, no changes to be made to get it to work on either the 755 or the 960. http://vm-help.com/index.html is very good for ESXi on white-box hardware. On the 960 I originally installed ESXi 3.5u2, couldn't do an inplace upgrade to 4, had to migrate the VM's to external storage and reload. In saying that, my 960 ESXi box has 2 x 1Tb disks, one of which is assigned to Openfiler, connected an eSata disk and moved the rest of the vms onto it. Would've been a lot easier with Virtual Centre. The 755 at work was originally installed with 3.5u4 and upgraded to 4 with no issue using the host upgrade util from vmware. I'm reloading the 755 with 4 from scratch as the test it was set up for is finished and I'm moving my vm's from Workstation on my PC over to it. The big issue I had with the 960 originally was the sata dvd drive, it didn't like it which was part of the hassle, 4 was no problem for that either. I find the handiest way I found for testing is to install it to usb key first, a lot easier to play with than having to burn cd's each time and you'll know if something isn't supported. this mail is probably a bit all over the place, writing it in bits and pieces. Regards Tony Patton Desktop Operations Cavan Ext 8078 Direct Dial 049 435 2878 email: tony.pat...@quinn-insurance.com From: Brian Desmond <br...@briandesmond.com> To: "NT System Admin Issues" <ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com> Date: 03/11/2009 15:23 Subject: RE: Home Servers I take it ESX has started being SATA friendly? It used to not be. My lab box has VMWare Workstation on it (and SATA spindles) but I?ve pondered reloading it before with ESX? Thanks, Brian Desmond br...@briandesmond.com c - 312.731.3132 From: tony patton [mailto:tony.pat...@quinn-insurance.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2009 8:00 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Home Servers I'm running ESXi on a Dell OptiPlex 960 with no issues, the only niggle was when i went to put in the quad port nic was the chassis intrusion connection on the mobo was in the way, had to bend it slightly. The two reasons for the quad was the onboard wasn't recognised in esxi 3.5 and I had no dual cards, needless to say, i'm still only using 1 nic, haven't finished re-organising the network. The 960 is that quiet, you can't heard from out side the room and barely audibly when in the room. Regards Tony Patton Desktop Operations Cavan Ext 8078 Direct Dial 049 435 2878 email: tony.pat...@quinn-insurance.com From: John Cook <john.c...@pfsf.org> To: "NT System Admin Issues" <ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com> Date: 03/11/2009 13:50 Subject: RE: Home Servers I got a Dell T100 (basic home server) for under $400 (no OS ) and you can usually customize them (I?d go for the Xeon proc if nothing else) just go to slickdeals.net and search Dell I have 2 running ESX at my house. Very quiet boxes I might add, a big bonus for keeping them under the radar with the SO. John W. Cook Systems Administrator Partnership For Strong Families 315 SE 2nd Ave Gainesville, Fl 32601 Office (352) 393-2741 x320 Cell (352) 215-6944 Fax (352) 393-2746 MCSE, MCTS, MCP+I, A+, N+, VSP4, VTSP4 From: Brian Desmond [mailto:br...@briandesmond.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2009 8:34 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Home Servers Look at the Dell Outlet. You can get a beefy refurb box for quite a bit less than retail typically. This is what I did. Thanks, Brian Desmond br...@briandesmond.com c - 312.731.3132 From: Fogarty, Richard R CTR USA USASOC [mailto:rick.foga...@us.army.mil] Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2009 7:24 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Home Servers A bit ago, there was a recommendation for some prebuilt systems that people have used for a lower cost alternative to the big boys (Dell, IBM, HP) for some servers. I can?t seem to recall that link. Anyone have that available? I?m looking to rebuild by home network so I don?t need anything too overpowering and the windows domain has around 10 systems. I?d like to have ESXi running on it so I would like it to be a decent home server system. Suggestions? 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