ESXi supported 1x PCI-E SAS/SATA controllers?

[tim_kent]

I've got an IBM small form factor workstation at home currently running VMware Server with Windows 2003 as the host OS with 4GB of RAM. It chugs along nicely most of the time with its internal SATA drive. The performance is good enough for general testing and an Exchange VM for 3 users.

I would like to give ESXi a go however I don't think it supports my Intel Gigabit NIC (82566DM) or Intel ICH8 chipset. As this machine is in a small form factor case, it has only one 1x PCI-E slot and one 32bit PCI slot.

Does anyone know of a supported 1x PCI-E SAS/SATA controller, preferably with an external port? If not, can you recommend a PCI-X controller that is happy to work in 32bit mode?

Thanks!

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Welcome to the VMware Community forums. Neither the NIC or ICH8 controller would be supported, but ESXi should be able to recognize the SATA controller (you'll need to run it in SATA/IDE mode). Are you able to get the PCI IDs for both components.

[tim_kent]

Thanks for the reply. Is this what you are after?

PCI_BUS_2&DABA3FF&0

PCI_BUS_0

Intel(R) Q963/Q965 Processor to I/O Controller - 2990

Standard VGA Graphics Adapter

PCI Simple Communications Controller

Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller

PCI Serial Port

Intel(R) 82566DM Gigabit Network Connection

Intel(R) ICH8 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2834

Intel(R) ICH8 Family USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 283A

Intel(R) ICH8 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2830

Intel(R) ICH8 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2831

Intel(R) ICH8 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2832

Intel(R) ICH8 Family USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 2836

Intel(R) 82801 PCI Bridge - 244E

Intel(R) ICH8DO LPC Interface Controller - 2814

Intel(R) ICH8 4 port Serial ATA Storage Controller - 2820

Intel(R) ICH8 Family SMBus Controller - 283E

Intel(R) ICH8 2 port Serial ATA Storage Controller - 2825

If this isn't enough detail I can boot the box into Linux.

[tim_kent]

Managed to track down the device ID for the NIC as it wasn't in the list above:

pci\ven_8086&dev_104a

[Dave_Mishchenko]

You should be OK with the NIC (it's listed in the PCI id database for ESXi). In general people have had good success with the ICH8 controllers as well.

[tim_kent]

Thanks, I'll give it a go tonight on a fresh hard drive and report back.

[tim_kent]

Unfortunately things didn't go as planned:

Unable to find a supported device to write the VMware ESX Server 3i 3.5.0 image to.

The following system information will assist the VMware Support team with your problem. Please record this information before proceeding.

System Information:

Manufacturer: LENOVO

Model: 6488AG7

I did however notice that the NIC was detected (e1000 driver) and was allocated as an interface, so that's a bonus!

[tim_kent]

Hold that thought, it's probably because I forgot to change the controller settings in the BIOS! :smileycool:

Will let you know how things go.

[tim_kent]

OK, the only BIOS option I could find relating to SATA was "Native Mode Operation". The two settings were "Automatic" or "Serial ATA", unfortunately neither worked.

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Here's something to try

1) once you have ESXi booted and at the error message press ALT-F1

2) a console should come up and ask for a login (use 'root' with a blank password).

3) you can then run lspci (use lspci --help to see options). Can you get an idea of the PCI IDs (vender / device / subvender / sub-device) for the controller?