• Gira Homeserver Firmware Update Anleitung

To clarify, the system is not supported by VMware, so do not use this system in a productive environment. I can not guarantee that it will work stable. As a home lab, or a small home server it should be fine.

I have read that people had managed to get beta versions of Homeserver working, but has anyone had any success with ESX 3.5 & the final release of Homeserver? I have tried and failed.

I have created a VM with 65Gb disk, 512Mb RAM & BusLogic controller and the OS set to Windows 2003, if I upload an ISO copy of the Homeserver DVD the install starts and gets to the point where it cannot find a disk to install the OS to, at this point you can provide a driver disk, in this case the VMWare Buslogic drivers, these are read and an error message displayed. This is not specific to the BusLogic drivers, the same error is generated if I use LSI drivers.

If I do exactly the same as above but mount the DVD in the ESX host, the drivers are loaded without errors, but still no harddisk is found.

Any ideas

VMware Homeserver – ESXi on Gigabyte BRIX

Details

Published: Sunday, 08 February 2015 05:18

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Beside NUCs and Mac minis there is another great barebone in the homelab market. Basic requirements for home server are a decent price, good performance and low power consumption. Gigabytes BRIX offers great performance and is small in size and power consumption and thus makes it a great candidate for running ESXi at home. To get started, first a look at the different models available at the moment.

BRIX: Basic Barebone, candidate for ESXi.

• GB-BXi3-4010: Intel Core i3-4010U (2x 1.7GHz)
• GB-BXi5-4200: Intel Core i5-4200U (2x 2.6GHz)
• GB-BXi7-4500: Intel Core i7-4500U (2x 3.0GHz)

BRIX s: Identical to BRIX barebones but with 2.5″ HDD/SDD support. Slightly larger case and a good candidate for ESXi.

• GB-BXi3H-4010: Intel Core i3-4010U (2x 1.7GHz)
• GB-BXi5H-4200: Intel Core i5-4200U (2x 2.6GHz)
• GB-BXi7H-4500: Intel Core i7-4500U (2x 3.0GHz)

BRIX Pro: High performance BRIX with 2.5″ HDD/SDD support and quad-core CPU. These are the only systems with VT-d support and thus the best candidate for ESXi.

• GB-BXi5-4570R: Intel Core i5-4570R (4x 3.20 GHz)
• GB-BXi7-4770R: Intel Core i7-4770R (4x 3.90 GHz)

There is also a Brix Gaming series with GPU support and a BRIX Projector with an integrated projector. BRIX with AMD and Celeron CPUs are also available but these are not the best candidates for ESXi. I’m listing them here for completeness.

• BRIX Projector GB-BXPi3-4010
• BRIX Gaming GB-BXi5G3-760
• BRIX Gaming GB-BXi5G-760
• BRIX Gaming GB-BXi7G3-760
• BRIX Gaming (AMD) GB-BXA8G-8890
• BRIC (AMD) GB-BXA8-5545
• BRIX (Celeron) GB-BXBT-2807

Features

The Kits are shipped with:

• Chassis
• System board
• Processor (soldered)
• power adapter
• Power cord
• VESA Bracket

Gira Homeserver Firmware Update Anleitung

To get an ESXi Host installed you need:

• Memory (SO-DIMM DDR3L)
• mSATA SSD
• USB-Stick
• 2,5″ HDD/HDD (BRIX s and BRIX Pro)

Model comparison

Best candidates for ESXi are BRIX, BRIX s and BRIX Pro. I am not looking further into other models.

HCL and VMware ESXi Support

All listed BRIX systems have hardware support for virtualization and a 64-bit capable CPU. Therefore it should be compatible to VMware ESXi. Gigabyte BRIX Pro barebones have Intel VT-d support which makes the system better and installation easier.

To clarify, the system is not supported by VMware (Not listed in HCL), so do not use this system in a productive environment. I can not guarantee that it will work stable. As a home lab, or a small home server it should be fine.

You have to create a customized image or the installer will fail with the following error message:

No Network Adapters

No network adapters were detected. Either no network adapters are physically connected to the system, or a suitable driver could not be located. A third party driver my be required.

Install ESXi on Gigabyte BRIX

SATA and Network drivers are not included in the ESXi Base Image, so you have to create a customized image. This is a very easy step, everyone can do it at home in 10 minutes.

1. Download and install vSphere PowerCLI 5.8 to use the Image Builder. This requires an account at vmware.com. If you are not entitled to download PowerCLI, register for an evaluation.
2. Open VMware vSphere PowerCLI
3. Use the following commands to create a customized ESXi Image for you BRIX. This will download all required files (about 300MB) and create a bootable ISO file. If you want to use another ESXi version than ESXi 5.5 February Patch 2015, select another Image Profile. A list of all Image Profiles is available here.Create an ISO if you have a BRIX Pro

   Create an ISO is you have a BRIX or BRIX s

4. Credit for the sata-xahci map file goes to Andreas Peetz at VMware Front Experience.

5. Burn ESXi-5.5.0-20150204001-BRIX.iso to a cd or create a usb flash drive
6. Connect an external CD drive with the customized CD to the BRIX or connect flash drive
7. Turn on the Brix
8. Press DEL until the BIOS screen appears
9. Navigate to Boot and disable CSM parameters
10. BRIX Pro should be able to install ESXi now. BRIX and BRIX s require a little tweak
11. For BRIX and BRIX s press SHIFT+O during the first 5 seconds on ESXi Installer
12. Append noIOMMU as boot option and press ENTER
13. Install ESXi
14. After the installation add noIOMMU to kernelopt in /bootbank/boot.cfgvi /bootbank/boot.cfg
15. That’s it. Please remember that step 11-14 are only required for BRIX and BRIX s.

Tested ESXi Versions

• VMware ESXi 4.1
• VMware ESXi 5.0
• VMware ESXi 5.1
• VMware ESXi 5.5
• VMware ESXi 6.0 (Beta)

Power consumption

Free download tiger woods pga tour 12 pc. Power consumption differs based on the model. BRIX and BRIX s have a ultra-low power mobile CPUs, BRIX Pro have desktop CPUs. The power consumption (Idle, Max) is about:

BRIX and BRIX s: 10W – 27WBRIX Pro: 14W – 82W

Shopping Guide

Read morehttp://www.virten.net/2015/02/vmware-homeserver-esxi-on-gigabytes-brix/