Question

VMWARE Server 2.0 or VMWARE ESXi

Asked by: jhieb

Hello,
I installed vmware server 2.0 on a Windows 2008 server. It seems to be running fine but I do not have features such as the ability to clone existing virtual images. I've been told that ESXi is a better platform for my testing environment than vmware server 2.0. So, I am considering the upgrade. My first hesitation in doing this is that I don't know what to expect during the install of ESXi. My computer has a SIIG Raid controller and two drives are mirrored with this controller. When I go to install ESXI will it see my RAID drives and allow me to install it on there? Or, will I run into problems? What would be the best way to change to ESXi and... is this a good choice to change?
Thanks,
John

PS: My RAID controller is a SIIG SATA II PCIe RAID controller. it supports 2 hard drives, and it is version 2.0

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Asked On
2009-10-28 at 12:17:26ID24852332
Tags

Vmware

Topic

VMware

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Answers

 

by: za_mkhPosted on 2009-10-28 at 13:43:05ID: 25688091

Even with free ESXi you will not get the option to 'natively' create clones of existing virtual machines. You need vCenter for that. ESXi is the better platform as it will allow you to squeeze more performance out of the same hardware.

To see if your hardware is compatible, look at the vmware HCL http://www.vmware.com/go/hcl

With ESXi is installed it will obviously overwrite your Windows 2008 host but I guess you know that.

Another option to create clones regardless of platform is to use the free vmware converter. So you can use the converter to create clones ...

 

by: ryder0707Posted on 2009-10-28 at 16:02:55ID: 25689186

Even if your hardware is not listed in vmware official hcl, it might still work fine
You can check your system in whitebox list such as http://www.vm-help.com//esx40i/esx40_whitebox_HCL.php
There are other methods to clone vm in vmware server/esxi, should no be an issue if you decide to use either one, let me know if you are interested

And fyi, esxi is not only better than vmware server, in fact it is actually better than esx if compared directly.
Lot of people think that esxi is a handicapped version of esx, the truth is it is not, it is actually the real thing and far better than esx in terms of performance, with the proper license, esxi can do anything as esx would, the reason it is better than esx is becoz, it has no service console(the linux thingy) running in the background, this means less overhead, nothing to be processed by the cpu just for this, but ofcoz without the service console, the way we do things like patching/updating(rarely in esxi), installing hardware agents or specific tool that you normally can install on normal esx is going to be different

By the way, you have the option to install esxi on specific drive during installation process but caution that all data will be wiped out clean
So if you have 2 drives, you can install on drive 2 so data will not be touched in drive 1

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