Hello all,
i have the option to buy this kit of x79 Xeon + Aurora R4 Motherboard for really cheap, but idk if i will be able to install ESXi, since theres no documentation on Dells part, and also i couldn’t find any other attempt to run it,
it should work since its a x79 chipset and a Xeon with VT-d/x available.
but have any of you have tried this configuration, or just a Hypervisor on an Alienware Aurora R4?
Regards
I have two machines with two different pairs of x79 board and i7 and ESXi installed on them.
I never actually cared about VT-d so I cannot comment on that, nor I ever use mobo from product you mention.
What I can comment on from my experience is that any non Intel LAN and any non Intel SATA controller on desktop boards will be invisible to vanilla ESXi.
Specifically, on the list of driver downloads you can see “Realtek Integrated Ethernet Controller Driver”.
And some desktop boards (especially aiming at gamers) do not even try to utilize all SATA capabilities of the Intell chipset before putting not one but two independent SATA controllers from third party.
So you will probably need to add intell LAN controller on card into this machine. ESXI will not install if no LAN is found. There is some possibility that you can try to use custom drivers with ESXi,
But as far for Realtek controllers goes there is always stability issues mentioned (of the driver) and you will be actually very lucky if it will work at all. It might work now if you will find working driver for that specific LAN/SATA chipset, but when you will be updating ESXI most likely you will find out that the driver no longer works and there is no new one.
Yeah on the NiC part i always use those Intel Pro 1000 with 2-4 Ports, because you cant beat intel on the consumer market, and other Enterprise options are too expensive.
The real issue is that idk if the board would work at all with ESXi, i have found any documentation on dells part, i mean those are probable the same chipsets used on the Precision line but still, maybe they are firmware tweaked.