Recommendations for a 775 mobo for virtualization (VMWare ESXi)

[Phantomaniac]

I'm going to be getting a free Dell XPS 420 soon (Q6600 w/4GB DDR2). I've only ever had one PC, so I'd like to play around with Type 1 virtualization. I really like the idea of being able to run a Windows and Linux server concurrently on the same PC. I know that most consumer level motherboards aren't officially supported by VMWare, but I was hoping someone on AT had some experience getting VMWare ESXi running on consumer hardware, specifically 775 platforms.

Also, not sure if I'm posting in the right place, but I don't see a forum for Virtualization.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Look into the Gigabyte UD3P or R P45, if you can find one.

 

[goobernoodles]

I'm not 100% sure about this, but I think that a lot boards that aren't supported are because ESXi doesn't support the RAID functionality built into a lot of these boards. I'd do research on whether the SATA/RAID controller on the board is supported by ESXi.

At my last job, we had 80+ crappy HP Proliant servers running ESXi that weren't technically ESXi compatible. The thing was - RAID didn't work, so every single server had a 2nd drive that wasn't being used. It was pretty f'in stupid. Glad they were ordered before my time. lol

 

[Phantomaniac]

I'm not 100% sure about this, but I think that a lot boards that aren't supported are because ESXi doesn't support the RAID functionality built into a lot of these boards. I'd do research on whether the SATA/RAID controller on the board is supported by ESXi.

At my last job, we had 80+ crappy HP Proliant servers running ESXi that weren't technically ESXi compatible. The thing was - RAID didn't work, so every single server had a 2nd drive that wasn't being used. It was pretty f'in stupid. Glad they were ordered before my time. lol

Don't care about RAID as this is a hobby server. As long as the drives are recognized that's all I ask.

 

[Massive Overkill]

Just gave my old VM Workstation rig to my co-worker and converted it to ESXi. It had an Asus P5E-VM HDMI and the only thing that it didn't recognize was the onboard NIC, which I replaced with a cheap Intel. It even recognized the onboard RAID.

My new rig I'm keeping with workstation (we've got dual Gulftown 5660 server with 64 gigs RAM for ESXi stuff). It's an MSI 890GXM-G65 mATX with 1055T and 16 gigs of RAM. I may try dual-booting to see how compatible it is with ESXi.