Community NVMe Driver for ESXi
Summary
This Fling is a collection of ESXi Native Drivers which enables ESXi to recognize and consume various NVMe-based storage devices. These devices are not officially on the VMware HCL and have been developed to enable and support the VMware Community.
Contributors
- Wenchao Cui
- Yibo Dong
- William Lam
Changelog
Nov 10, 2021 - v1.2
nvme-community_1.0.1.0-3vmw.700.1.0.15843807-component-18902434.zip
md5: 693f692d10811c52e9261c18db4337a5
What's New:- Support for ESXi 7.0 or newer for Apple NVMe devices
July 12, 2021 - v1.1 nvme-community-driver_1.0.1.0-2vmw.700.1.0.15843807-component-18290856.zip
md5: bb7701bde7a2bcf2732f686cc997f330
What's New:- Support for ESXi 7.0 or newer
- Support for 3 additional NVMe storage devices(please see the Requirements for more details)
Note: For customers that require support for Apple NVMe devices, the previous version of the Fling (v1.0), which is only supported with ESXi 6.7 is still required.
February 23, 2021 - v1.0 (Initial Release) nvme-community-driver_1.0.1.0-1vmw.670.0.0.8169922-offline_bundle-17658145.zip
md5: 826ed693a09d5745c496a7f42f793bd0Requirements
Non-Apple NVMe- VMware ESXi 7.0 (x86) or newer is required
- Any NVMe storage devices with VID/PID listed below are supported
Vendor VendorID ProductID
| ADATA | 0x1cc1 | 8201 |
| Micro/Crucial | 0xc0a9 | 0x2263 |
| Silicon Motion | 0x126f | 0x2262 |
Apple NVMeNote: For detailed ESXi version and build numbers, please refer to VMware KB 2143832 Known Issues:- The onboard Thunderbolt 3 ports does NOT function when using the Community NVMe driver and can cause ESXi to PSOD if activated.
Instructions
Step 1 - Download the Offline Bundle zip file for the Community NVMe Driver for ESXi and upload to ESXi host using either SCP or Datastore Browser
Step 2 - Install the ESXi Offline Bundle by running the following command on ESXi Shell to install ESXi Offline Bundle:
esxcli software vib install -d /path/to/the offline bundle zip
Step 4 - Reboot the ESXi host for the change to go into effect. Once the host has rebooted, ESXi should now allow be able to claim and use the local NVMe SSD.
Note: For those that wish to incorporate the Community NVMe Driver for ESXi into a new ESXi Image Profile, you can use either the Image Builder UI in vCenter Server or Image Builder CLI with PowerCLI.
