{"id":5045,"date":"2017-03-21T09:12:34","date_gmt":"2017-03-21T14:12:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/?p=5045"},"modified":"2017-03-18T09:14:08","modified_gmt":"2017-03-18T14:14:08","slug":"installing-vsphere-hypervisor-vmware-esxi-6-5-on-an-intel-nuc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/installing-vsphere-hypervisor-vmware-esxi-6-5-on-an-intel-nuc\/","title":{"rendered":"Installing VSphere Hypervisor (VMWare ESXi 6.5) on an Intel NUC"},"content":{"rendered":"

We test our software a lot, and it helps to have a large network. \u00a0We don\u2019t have thousands of servers like many customers, but we can simulate a large network<\/a>\u00a0which gives us better real-world testing. \u00a0It\u2019s time to expand our environment again, but we didn\u2019t want to setup another large server for VMs that ultimately do very little. \u00a0Using one of the new \u201cMini-PCs\u201d seemed like a good idea, so we\u2019ll show you what we did.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The goal was to get a VMWare ESXi 6.5 system running for about $700.<\/span><\/p>\n

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We went to our friendly local Microcenter and asked about an Intel NUC. \u00a0The models they had in stock came with either a Pentium, i5 or i7 processor, and no memory or disk. \u00a0Perfect!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

We got the i5 model (NUC6i5SYH), 32GB of RAM, and a 512GB M.2 SSD drive. \u00a0You\u2019ll see these really are small devices (banana not available, so screwdriver for size comparison). \u00a0The cost was right around our $700 goal (sorry, I don\u2019t have the receipt handy).<\/span><\/p>\n

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Installing the RAM and SSD drive was a snap. \u00a0You basically loosen 4 screws on the bottom and lift the top off.<\/span><\/p>\n

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You can see where the RAM and M.2 SSD drive were installed. \u00a0Installing an M.2 drive requires a special screw to keep it in place. \u00a0I don\u2019t recall whether it came with the NUC or the drive, but we ended up having one.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Time to put it back together, and connect to keyboard and mouse (USB), video (HDMI), and power (included with NUC). \u00a0I can thank Quinn for the nice backdrop \ud83d\ude42<\/span><\/p>\n

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You\u2019ll see a small red thumb drive connected to the front. \u00a0We downloaded the free VMWare ESXi 6.5 (which apparently is now called vSphere Hypervisor) and burned the ISO onto the USB drive. \u00a0Once the power was on, we went to the NUC boot screen, the boot menu (press F10), and finally to the VMWare installer welcome screen.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The screen doesn\u2019t look great in the images above. \u00a0I\u2019m not sure what I did, but after rebooting, everything was smooth and clear.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The only real choice we had to make was which drive to install VMWare onto, and naturally we choose the internal M.2 SSD drive we had installed.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The installation was as smooth and simple as could be, and when we were done, we had a new VMWare host! \u00a0Time to load up a bunch of tiny VMs \ud83d\ude42<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We test our software a lot, and it helps to have a large network. \u00a0We don\u2019t have thousands of servers like many customers, but we can simulate a large network\u00a0which gives us better real-world testing. \u00a0It\u2019s time to expand our environment again, but we didn\u2019t want to setup another large server for VMs that ultimately […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5046,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,6,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-it","category-how-to","category-tech","category-technical"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5045"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5068,"href":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5045\/revisions\/5068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}