Two platforms for building Nano Datacenter

The use of VMware vSphere as a virtualization platform is common in test environments or Home LABS, and I prefer to use the term Nano Datacenter to refer to such environments. Nano Datacenter is typically built on two platforms: Apple Mac Mini and Intel NUC.

NUC 8 vs. Mac Mini 2018

Take a look at the current VMware ESXi 7.0 Update 2 support for both platforms.

The details of Apple Mac Mini can be found in VMware HCL:

Mac Mini (Late 2012) Mac Mini (Late 2014) Mac Mini (Late 2014) Mac Mini (Late 2014) Mac Mini (Late 2014) You can use the standard ESXi version to install ESXi. (Mac Mini (M1, 2020) is obviously not supported yet, and ESXi Arm Edition is likely to follow in the future.)

Note: Due to the Apple T2 security chip mechanism, the 2008 Mac Min cannot run ESXi using the built-in NVMe SSD and can only be booted via Thunderbolt 3 with external PCIe or USB storage devices.

  • Local NVMe storage is not supported by ESXi. Limited Thunderbolt 3 (TB3) support enabled. Hot-add or removal and passthrough with TB3 connected devices are not supported. ESXi can be installed/booted on USB flash drive or on TB3 connected storage devices (e.g., PCIe NVMe Adapter, PCIe M.2 SSD, USB etc.,)

NUC 9 vs. Mac Mini 2018

Intel NUC is not on the official support list, so if you are updating an existing system, please be extra careful. This is not an officially supported platform and I cannot support it. The custom version of the image provided by the author is recommended for a new installation.

ESXi 7.0 U2 ships with a new NE1000 driver that, according to VMware experts, does not change NUC compatibility. The compatibility is as follows:

  • Compatible with the 10th generation NUC and all previous products, except the Intel I219-V (6) network adapter used in the 8th generation NUC [Bean Canyon] still requires the community-networking-driver.

  • For the 11th-generation NUC, the community-network-driver is still required if the 2.5g network card is used.

Note: USB Nic Fling has not yet been built to be compatible with 7.0U2. If you use an external USB card and need USB Nic Fling in previous versions, it may not work. You need to wait for updates to USB Nic Fling.

Image compatibility

The image integrated NIC driver applies to the following NUCS. If your NUC is a model supported by the built-in driver, use a standard ESXi image (this version can also be used).

ESXi 7.0U2 integrates Community Network Driver for 8th Gen Bean Canyon / 11th Gen NUC, with the following models:

  • NUC8i7BEH (Intel Core I7-8559U-4 Core, up to 4.5ghz)
  • NUC8i5BEH/NUC8i5BEK (Intel Core I5-8259 U-4 Core, up to 3.8 GHz)
  • NUC8i3BEH (Intel Core I3-8109U-2 Core, up to 3.6ghz)
  • 11th Gen NUC (NUC11PAQi7, NUC11PAHi7, NUC11PAKi7, NUC11PAQi5, NUC11PAHi5, NUC11PAKi5, NUC11PAHi3, NUC11PAKi3, NUC11TNHv70L, NUC11TNHv7, NUC11TNHv50L, NUC11TNHv5, NUC11TNKv7, NUC11TNKv5, NUC11TNHi70Q, NUC11TNHi70L, NUC11TNHi7, NUC11TNHi50W, NUC11TNHi50L, NUC11TNHi5, NUC11TNHi30P, NUC11TNHi30L, NUC11TNHi3, NUC11TNKi7, NUC11TNKi5, NUC11TNKi3)

An overview of the features

In addition to the above increases in NIC compatibility, this image mainly adds the following features:

  • SLIC 2.5: Windows Server 2019 with OEM support

  • MacOS Unlock: Run macOS Big Sur 11 directly

  • LegacyCPU Support allows you to install ESXi 7.0 on unsupported cpus

  • Change the esx-osdata volume size to 4 gb to solve the problem that the disk space occupied by default ESXi 7.0 installation exceeds 142GB.

For details, see VMware ESXi 7.0 Update 2 SLIC & Unlocker.

Download address

Name: ESXi-7.0.2-17630552-NUC-SLIC-sysin.org.iso Size: 412985344 bytes (393 MiB) CRC32: BAAFAF24 CRC64:403186DC73DAaed7 SHA1: 3E988054547A84334090620A4C657469166B74DC SHA256: 151BEA89B1D9243988B4D8B661D46FA5E846AD86D5B84021AF101BE856342BFF

Baidu web disk link: sysin.org/article/vmw…