Motherboard Specs

Asus P5N-EM with latest Bios

CPU's that work with VT
q6600 quad core 2.4ghz C2D
e6300 Pentium dual core 2.8ghz (has C2D tech and VT enabled 79.99)
e3200 & e3300 Celeron dual cores (has C2D tech and VT enabled 50.00)

Memory = 4gb max

On-board NIC works at full gigabit speed
On-board IDE works out of the box and i can see DVD drive and Compact flash to ide 8gb......ide hard-drive tested and works.

On-board Sata does not work so here is the workaround.

SATA Hardware raid controllers that work out of the box in ESXi

Adaptec AAR-1210sa 2 channel raid ( 20 bucks on ebay )

Adaptec AAR-2610sa HP version 6 channel raid card (40 bucks on ebay )

These cards work out of the box but you MUST TURN OFF USB legacy support in the bios and this MUST BE DONE before you install the card.

Tested raid cards with a single 40gig 2.5 inch laptop sata drive and ESXi ran super smooth.....tested VM's are as below.

m0n0wall ( latest version )

Freenas ( latest Version )

Ubuntu Server 8.04 with gui installed...Higher versions cannot change IP address unless you run the desktop version.

I am also using an Intel gigabit CT desktop adapter that is PCIx1 as i needed this for m0n0wall to work out of the box.

Everything is working excellent....

if you have this motherboard you can simply use an IDE harddrive and Cd-rom with the on-board connector or use one of the raid cards i used above.

I'm really impressed with ESXI as it is more efficient than running VM's inside an OS.....even the Celeron dual core flies!!!!!!!

Hello danimaldaisy,

with the following configuration:

MB ASUS P5Q SE2
Intel Dual Core E6500
DDR2 RAM 8 Go Kingston
HDD 250 Go Hitachi
HDD 250 Go Samsung
HDD 320 Go Seagate
HDD 1 To Hitachi
Adaptec 1210SA (RAID)
Intel PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter

The Esxi server is running smoothly but I am not able to configure the RAID hardware correctly. Thus, could you please explain (in details), the different step in order to use the Adaptec 1210SA raid?

Thank you for your answers.

So I guess that the previous post was a fake!

I hope this is the only one or maybe the Adaptec 1210SA should be removed from the ESXi compatibility list.

Cheers.

Purchased the AAR-1210SA Adaptec Serial ATA RAID PCI card to work in a BioStar A780L Socket AM2_/AM3 760G mATX Motherboard. This card worked out of the box with ESXi 4.0 (and 3.5). Drives are independent - no RAID.

Hello Estebond and thank you for your feedback,

unfortunately, I am still unable to use my adaptec 1210SA (RAID0). What I found on the VMware community http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-11713 is not good so please could you tell me a little be more on your solution?

PS: I upgraded successfully to Esxi 4.1

Many thanks.

From what I've read, using RAID on adaptec 1210SA card will not work with esxi 4.0. My current configuration is without RAID and I think it shows up as JBOD.