This is just a mini work-log of how I got my ESXi server running for use at my home.
Hardware specs:
Motherboard: Jetway NF9G-QM77
CPU: Intel i5-3320M SR0MX 120
RAM: 2 x Corsair Vengeance CMSX8GX3M1A1600C10 8GB
HDD: Plextor PX-128M5M 128GB mSata
PSU: Seasonic 350W 1U PSU (doesn’t fit the case, but good enough)
Case: U-NAS 8-bay with USB 3.0 front module
Extra specs:
Realtek 4-port GigE daughter board
LSI 9650SE-12ML RAID Card (3ware 9650SE)
4x Seagate 3TB Drives
1x WD 3TB Green Drive
Software:
ESXi 5.5
Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard (NAS and DLNA server)
Pfsense (To be installed)
Initial incompatibilities:
Out-of-box I believe ESXi detected the Intel GigE NICs but only mounted one of them. It also didn’t detect the Realtek daughter-board nor the RAID card.
An aside: ESXi 5.1u1 seemed to get some of the functionality working for the Realtek nics.
Overall problems:
– Realtek ports not detected
– LSI Raid card not detected
– LSI Raid detected but no drives found
– 3TB showed as 750GB
Found out that the Realtek daughter-board needed the Realtek 8168 driver package from ESXi 5.1/5.0, the LSI 9650SE also is an async driver which means I have to load it into the ISO or afterwards as well. After creating a new ISO including the new Realtek drivers and the LSI raid driver, I managed to get the NICs working but the RAID card wasn’t detected still… Actually, the RAID card was shipped and I figured maybe the battery was dead or something wasn’t letting it detect properly. After 24 hours of letting it sit in the desktop with the power cord connected (still off) it was detected but didn’t load anything properly (no drives). After some tinkering I managed to get the RAID drivers loaded, had to load a newer aacraid driver in addition to the LSI drivers.
Later I found out, that the drives weren’t being detected properly as they showed as 746GB drives. I thought it was weird so I put in a WD 3TB drive that was known for sure to be compatible (although I found someone using the Seagates), but it was the same. I realized I had misread the firmware number and I had one just before the 2TB+ compatibility, so I had to update the firmware to FE9X 4.10.00.027 to work. All detected A-OK.
Beginning to end in a summed up form would be….
Driver list:
3DM2_CLI-Win_10.2.2.1_9.5.5.1.zip
9650SE_9690SA_firmware_9.5.5.1codeset_fw4.10.00.027.zip
aacraid-1.2.1.40301-1475991.zip
LSI_2.27.08.036vm50-offline_bundle-637081.zip
scsi-3w-9xxx-2.27.08.036-1OEM.500.0.0.472560.x86_64.vib
VMware_bootbank_net-r8168_8.013.00-3vmw.510.0.0.799733.vib
vmware-esxi-drivers-scsi-aacraid-510.5.2.1.40301.-1.1.5.802205.x86_64.vib
Installing ESXi 5.5 with drivers
1) Download the drivers to load (Realtek 8168, LSI 9650SE async, aacraid)
2) One-by-one load them into the ISO using ESXi Customizer (I believe I loaded the vib files but I’ve included the offline zips as well)
3) Create a USB using rufus
4) Install to the server
5) Configure network access to connected NIC
6) Log into ESXi server on remote machine
7) Setup and install a guest OS
Configure RAID card
1) Ensure firmware 4.10.00.024 (FE9X 4.10.00.027 is what I used) or higher is installed on the RAID card
2) Create your array, or configure single drives to use windows to create an array
* Note: there are two ways to configure the array, one is through the RAID cards bootloader but you need to be in BIOS mode the other way is through the 3DM2 interface.
Configure windows
1) Install RAID Drivers, ensure the latest 3DM2 is installed to work with Windows 2012 R2
2) Setup RAID using Disk Manager (for Software RAID) or 3DM2 (for Hardware RAID)
3) Configure file server (initialize the disk)