VMware Homeserver ESXi on 7th Gen Intel NUC Kaby LakeIntels 7th Gen NUC is currently rolled out and after a resolved issue with the NIC driver, its time to take a look at their capabilities as homeserver running VMware ESXi. NUCs are not officially supported by VMware but they are very widespread in many homlabs or test environments. Portals/0/images/blogs/admin/WLW/InstalaceVMwareESX3i_D409/esx3i-10_thumb.png' alt='Esx Server 3.5 Serial' title='Esx Server 3.5 Serial' />They are small, silent, transportable and have a very low power consumption, making it a great server for your homelab. Ive posted a preview of the new models about 2 months ago. Gen. 7 NUCs are available with i. CPU. Features. 7th Gen Intel Kaby Lake CPUUp to 3. GB of DDR4 SODIMM memory. Available with and without 2. HDD slot. M. 2 slot for PCIe or X4 Gen 3 NVMe. External Micro SDXC Slot. Intel I2. 19 V Gigabit  Network Adapter. Thunderbolt 3 Port USB CIntel Optane Memory Ready. Watch videos and look at available classes to better help you get trained to understand the best ways to run the Server Application Monitor SAM. The Kit is shipped with Chassis 1. System board. Processor solderedPower adapter for different countries. Power cord. VESA bracket. To get an ESXi Host installed you additionally need Memory 1. V DDR4 2. 13. 3 SODIMMM. SSD 2. 24. 2 or 2. HDD or USB Stick. Model comparison. Model 2. 5NUC7i. BNHNUC7i. BNHNUC7i. BNHno 2. Slot NUC7i. BNKNUC7i. BNKArchitecture. Kaby Lake 1. CPUIntel Core i. UIntel Core i. UIntel Core i. 3 7. UBase Frequency. 3. GHz. 2. 2 GHz. 2. GHz. Max Frequency. Thanks to the team over at ServersPlus for arranging this Dell PowerEdge R710 demo unit for review. People that know me will know that with my background b. GHz. 3. 4 GHz. 2. GHz. Cores. 2 4 ThreadsTDP2. W1. 5 W1. 5 WTDP down. W9. 5 W7. 5 WMemory Type. V DDR4 2. 13. 3 MHz SO DIMMMax Memory. GBUSB Ports. 2x USB 3. USB 3. 0 back panel2x USB 2. Thunderbolt 3 Port 4. GbpsYes. Yes. No. USB 3. 1 Gen 2 Port 1. GbpsYes. Yes. Yes. Storage. M. 2 2. 2x. SATA3 or PCIe X4 Gen. NVMe OR AHCI SSDSATA3 2. HDDSDDSDXC Slot. LANIntel I2. V Gigabit LANIntel VT x. Yes. Intel v. Pro. No. Available. March 2. March 2. 01. 7February 2. Price. 49. 04. 002. HCL and VMware ESXi Support. The NUC is not supported by VMware and not listed in the HCL. Some components were accidentally listed a few weeks ago but their listing has been removed. Not supported means that you cant open an SR with VMware when you have a problem. It does not state that the device wont work. ESXi runs out of the box starting with the following releases ESXi 6. Update 3 Build 5. February 2. 01. 7ESXi 6. Currently there is no release that works out of the box because there is a problem with the network driver. Refer to the installation section for installation instructions. 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. Network Intel I2. V No Network Adapters Error. The network adapter does not work out of the box with any ESXi version, release prior to 2. Currently, only ESXi 6. U3, which is bundled with the net e. Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection 4 I2. VClass 0. 20. 0 8. Storage AHCI and NVMeThe AHCI driver for previous NUC versions was always available, but unsupported controllers were not correctly mapped to the driver. Therefore it was required to use the additional sata xahci package by Andreas Peetz v front. This workaround is no longer required. ESXi should detect all devices connected with AHCI or NVMe. There is a well known problem with NUCs running ESXi 6. AHCI driver. If you notice bad performance esxtop displays write latency over 1. SD Card. 7th Gen NUCs are equipped with a Micro SDXC Slot. Unfortunately, there is no driver available for ESXi at the moment so its not possible to use the SD Card slot. Tested ESXi Versions. VMware ESXi 5. 5. VMware ESXi 6. 0. VMware ESXi 6. 5. Delivery and assembly. The Box contains a short description how to open and assemble the components. The system is a little bit heavier than it looks and has a high build quality. The upside is very scratch sensitive, so be careful with it. The installation is very simple. Remove 4 screws on the bottom and remove the lid and the 2. The assembly takes about 5 Minutes to open the NUC, install memory, NVMe SSD module and a 2. If you are familiar with previous NUCs, you might notice that the 2. Installation. ESXi 6. No customization is required to install the latest ESXi 6. Gen NUCs. You can use the image provided by VMware to Install ESXi ESXi 6. Update May 2. 01. Ive replaced the Power. CLI Image creation because of a change in ESXi 6. Build 5. 14. 68. 46If you try to install any version of ESXi 6. No Network Adapters error. The error is caused by a problem with the network driver. While the problem has already been identified and there was a new driver in Build 5. Released 2. 01. 7 0. It seems that the problem has been tried to fix in ESXi 6. ESXi 6. 5. The net e. ESXi 6. 0. U3 has not made it into the official ESXi 6. To create a working ESXi 6. Get the latest version of Power. CLICreate a customized ESXi 6. ISO. ESXi 6. 5 U1 2. Add Esx. Software. Depot https hostupdate. VUMPRODUCTIONmainvmw depot index. New Esx. Image. Profile Clone. Profile ESXi 6. ESXi 6. NUC7 Vendor virten. Remove Esx. Software. Package Image. Profile ESXi 6. NUC7 Software. Package net e. Remove Esx. Software. Package Image. Profile ESXi 6. NUC7 Software. Package ne. Add Esx. Software. Package Image. Profile ESXi 6. NUC7 Software. Package net e. Export ESXImage. Profile Image. Profile ESXi 6. NUC7 Export. To. ISO filepath ESXi 6. NUC7. iso. Export ESXImage. Profile Image. Profile ESXi 6. NUC7 Export. To. Bundle filepath ESXi 6. NUC7. ESXi 6. Add Esx. Software. Depot https hostupdate. VUMPRODUCTIONmainvmw depot index. New Esx. Image. Profile Clone. Profile ESXi 6. ESXi 6. NUC7 Vendor virten. Remove Esx. Software. Package Image. Profile ESXi 6. NUC7 Software. Package net e. Remove Esx. Software. Package Image. Profile ESXi 6. NUC7 Software. Package ne. Add Esx. Software. Package Image. Profile ESXi 6. NUC7 Software. Package net e. Export ESXImage. Profile Image. Profile ESXi 6. NUC7 Export. To. ISO filepath ESXi 6. Duke Nukem Time To Kill Free Download For Pc. NUC7. iso. Install ESXi 6. The simplest way to install ESXi is by using the ISO and Rufus to create a bootable ESXi Installer USB Flash Drive. If you have already installed ESXi 6. USB NIC for example you can install the newer driver with the following command. You also want to remove the ne. Client. esxcli software vib install v https hostupdate. VUMPRODUCTIONmainesxvmwvib. VMwarebootbanknet e. ESXi Update with custom driver WorkaroundWhen you update your NUC with the workaround explained above, please make sure that you do not install the stock image provided by VMware. If you do so, the net e. ESXi 6. 5 will be installed and the onboard NIC will stop working. This also happens with ESXi 6. U1. Please use the procedure explained above with the latest Image Profile to create a custom update bundle. The Export Esx. Image. Profile Cmdlet with the Export. To. Bundle option allows you to create a. If youve already installed the update and vmnic. You have to use a USB NIC to copy the driver to the NUC. VUMPRODUCTIONmainesxvmwvib. VMwarebootbanknet e. VMwarebootbanknet e. Download VMwarebootbanknet e. The force f option is required because the working e. Performance. The performance of a single NUC is sufficient to run a small home lab including a v. Center Server and 3 ESXi hosts. Its a great system to take along for demonstration purposes. Currently, I run a 3 NUC Cluster that runs about 3.