Specifications

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One or more of the following controllers (any combination can be used):
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Basic SCSI controllers – Adaptec Ultra-160 or Ultra-320, LSI Logic Fusion-MPT, or most NCR/Symbios
SCSI.
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RAID controllers – Dell PERC (Adaptec RAID or LSI MegaRAID), HP Smart Array RAID, or IBM
(Adaptec) ServeRAID controllers.
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SCSI disk or a local (non-network) RAID LUN with unpartitioned space for the virtual machines.
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For Serial ATA (SATA), a disk connected through supported SAS controllers or supported on-board SATA
controllers.
NOTE You cannot connect a SATA CD-ROM device to a virtual machine on an ESXi 4.0 host. To use the
SATA CD-ROM device, you must use IDE emulation mode.
ESXi 4.0 Installable supports installing on and booting from the following storage systems:
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SATA disk drives – SATA disk drives connected behind supported SAS controllers or supported on-board
SATA controllers.
Supported SAS controllers include:
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LSI1068E (LSISAS3442E)
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LSI1068 (SAS 5)
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IBM ServeRAID 8K SAS controller
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Smart Array P400/256 controller
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Dell PERC 5.0.1 controller
Supported on-board SATA include:
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Intel ICH9
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Nvidia MCP55
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ServerWorks HT1000
NOTE ESXi does not support using local, internal SATA drives on the host server to create VMFS datastores
that are shared across multiple ESXi hosts.
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Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) disk drives – Supported for installing ESXi 4.0 and for storing virtual machines
on VMFS partitions.
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USB devices – Supported for installing ESXi 4.0. For more information, refer KB 1010574 at
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1010574.
Install ESXi 4.0
You use the ESXi 4.0 CD to install the ESXi 4.0 software onto a SAS, SATA, or SCSI hard drive.
You cannot install ESXi 4.0 on a SAN.
Prerequisites
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Verify that the server hardware clock is set to UTC. This setting is in the system BIOS.
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Verify that a keyboard and monitor are attached to the machine on which the ESXi software will be
installed.
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Consider disconnecting your network storage. This action decreases the time it takes the installer to search
for available disk drives.
Getting Started with ESXi Installable
14 VMware, Inc.