What is ESXi 4.1 Hypervisor (2GB USB) - Silly Question maybe

mishymishy Member Posts: 209 ■■■□□□□□□□
in Virtualization
I have just bought an HP microserver and I have seen another bundle being sold with a ESXi 4.1 Hypervisor (2GB USB) and I have been looking all over google trying to see what that is as the picture shows it as a low profile PCI card. Here is a link to the server bundle ESXi 4.1 Hypervisor (2GB USB) but I will be interested in buying just the ESXi 4.1 Hypervisor is its sold separately to run my VMware on it if it helps in providing a more efficient service and also frees up system resources.
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  • Forsaken_GAForsaken_GA Member Posts: 4,024
    You can download ESXi from VMWare for free. The free version isn't full featured, but it's a perfectly fine platform for running VM's on a standalone host.
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  • mishymishy Member Posts: 209 ■■■□□□□□□□
    Forsaken_GA wrote: »
    You can download ESXi from VMWare for free. The free version isn't full featured, but it's a perfectly fine platform for running VM's on a standalone host.
    Thanks for the quick reply but the picture on the server bundle here HP TG002GF102LB#ESX, 633724-421#VDEMO ProLiant MicroServer pre-configured with 8GB Memory, a HP NC112T Gigabit NIC and an ESXi 4.1 Hypervisor (2GB USB) | ServersPlus gives me the impression that you can also buy a PCI card with Esxi installed on it thats what I am not sure about. When you search on the internet all you can see is the download not the PCI card.
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  • Forsaken_GAForsaken_GA Member Posts: 4,024
    I'm not seeing any indication on that link that it's installed on a PCI card, it just says 2GB USB, so I'm guessing it's probably got a small USB drive that's got ESXi installed on it, and it's booting from that.
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  • mishymishy Member Posts: 209 ■■■□□□□□□□
    Forsaken_GA wrote: »
    I'm not seeing any indication on that link that it's installed on a PCI card, it just says 2GB USB, so I'm guessing it's probably got a small USB drive that's got ESXi installed on it, and it's booting from that.

    I think you are right, on the server I bought it did not have the PCI card on the picture and on this one it has so I guess the PCI slot has a USB port on it that you can install the ESXi on.

    I know the advantage is that you have a separate NIC card so you can connect to your server even when one is down but are they any other advantages?
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  • PishofPishof Member Posts: 193
    mishy wrote: »
    I think you are right, on the server I bought it did not have the PCI card on the picture and on this one it has so I guess the PCI slot has a USB port on it that you can install the ESXi on.

    I know the advantage is that you have a separate NIC card so you can connect to your server even when one is down but are they any other advantages?

    I just set up ESXi hypervisor on a 2GB usb drive this weekend attached to an older Dell server. On ESXi I used the vmware converter to send over a server 2008r2 DC I had setup.

    An advantage for me is that once I upgrade that server in a couple years I can easily just transfer the current NOS VM over to a new server setup with esxi.
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  • mishymishy Member Posts: 209 ■■■□□□□□□□
    I have had a further look at the Server and it looks like the ESXi is running on an internal USB and looking at what PISHOF has said I might go for the option of an internal USB drive to run ESXi.

    Thanks everyone.
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  • MentholMooseMentholMoose Member Posts: 1,525 ■■■■■■■■□□
    mishy wrote: »
    I think you are right, on the server I bought it did not have the PCI card on the picture and on this one it has so I guess the PCI slot has a USB port on it that you can install the ESXi on.

    I know the advantage is that you have a separate NIC card so you can connect to your server even when one is down but are they any other advantages?
    The onboard NIC on that server may not be supported on ESXi, so for the ESXi bundle they are including the pictured HP NC112T NIC which works with ESXi. Without a supported NIC you cannot even install ESXi, and even if you could install you couldn't do much without network connectivity.
    MentholMoose
    MCSA 2003, LFCS, LFCE (expired), VCP6-DCV
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  • mishymishy Member Posts: 209 ■■■□□□□□□□
    MentholMoose wrote: »
    The onboard NIC on that server may not be supported on ESXi, so for the ESXi bundle they are including the pictured HP NC112T NIC which works with ESXi. Without a supported NIC you cannot even install ESXi, and even if you could install you couldn't do much without network connectivity.

    I had a good look after getting replies here and found out that the NIC card on the picture is just an additional NIC card thats all but the server also comes with an internal USB port and thats where they have put just a standard 2GB usb drive with the free version of ESXi which I can probably buy for less than £5. The advantages of having ESXi on usb is that you can always carry it from machine to machine in the event of upgrading your machine.

    Thanks for your time and feedback
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