I have received a number of inquires asking whether ESXi can be installed on the latest 2014 Apple Mac Mini 7,1. Unfortunately, some early reports have indicated issues trying to get the latest version of ESXi installed on the Mac Mini and the results are also the same using old releases of ESXi as well. As of right now, VMware Engineering is unable to comment on the issue until they can get their hands on a the latest Mac Mini in house for investigation. If you happen to own the latest Mac Mini and live in the Bay Area and wish to help expedite the process by donating your system for testing, feel free to drop me a note. I will update this blog with new findings as they are made available regarding ESXi and the new Mac Mini's. The answer is yes, you can install the latest release of ESXi 5.5 Update 2 Patch03 and to be able to get the SATA HDD to show up, you will need to install a custom VIB shown below.
UPDATE 3 (11/7) - For those just wanting the latest ESXi 5.5 Update 2 Patch03 + SATA VIB ISO, I have created ESXi-5.5u2p03-MacMini-7-1-HDD.iso that you can just download and install.
UPDATE 2 (11/6) - Thanks to one of our CPD Engineers Charles Monnett, we now have a way for ESXi to detect the HDD located in the new Apple Mac Mini 7,1. It turns out there was a new SATA controller that is being used for the HDD and because it's PCI ID (8086:9c03) was unknown, it was not being claimed by the AHCI driver. Once this was added to the driver map files, ESXi could now see the second drive. Of course, I wanted to simplify this for end users, so I have built a new VIB called vghetto-apple-macmini71-hdd.vib that needs to be installed which can be done by using the following command:
esxcli software vib install -v /vghetto-apple-macmini71-hdd.vib -f
Once the VIB has been installed, go ahead reboot for the changes to take affect. We can now run the following command on the ESXi Shell to confirm that we now see both the SSD and HDD disk OR we can do so using the vSphere C# Client:
esxcli storage core device list
UPDATE 1 (11/5) - It looks like an internal team was able to get their hands on the latest Mac Mini 7,1 and using the latest ESXi 5.5 Update 2 Patch03 image, they were successfully able to install ESXi, however it only recognized the internal SSD (Samsung based) and not the Fusion drive. This will need to be further investigated on why the other device is not being claimed but it looks like as of now, you can at least get stock ESXi installed and use the SSD.
In the mean time, if you are looking to purchase a Mac Mini to run ESXi, I would highly recommend you take a look at some of the platform changes here and here before deciding to purchase. The most significant change in my opinion is the removal of user replaceable memory with soldered in memory! This means that you will NOT be able to upgrade the units after purchasing and you will need to max out the configuration during the initial purchase with Apple. This is one of the unfortunate changes to the Mac Mini platform and I personally would recommend looking at the last release of the Mac Mini's (Late 2012) which will provide the most bang for the buck. For the old Mac Mini's you will most likely have to look on eBay or even Amazon as they are no longer sold by Apple or their retailers.
Disclaimer: Running ESXi on an Apple Mac Mini is not officially supported by VMware, please use at your own risk
Another unfortunate change is that the mac mini do not have Quad Core CPU configuration any longer only Dual core as well as the removal of the 2nd HDD support. It seems they moving away from the SMB server market with these changes on the Mac Mini and promoting it as a Desktop. I guess they counting on the Mac Pro to fill that gap.
Apple buys RAM from a limited pool of suppliers. It's not ECC, but if RAM is now only factory supplied I wonder if this might nudge VMware towards officially supporting the Mini?
Lots of ifs and buts, but if Broadwell is socket compatible it's possible the Quad Core could come back. Ivy Bride was socket compatible across quad and dual core models Haswell isn't.
Keep in mind the old(er) Mac Mini's are available for purchase as refurbs. They are somewhat rare, but can be found!
William -
Maybe you should consider setting up a special "ESXi on 2014 Mini" crowd source donations account somewhere so you can go out and buy that mini for the good of the community. I know I'd happily pitch in toward it if others would commit as well.
Community-
I want to look at the Gigabyte BRIX as an alternative to the MAC Mini purely based on the recent hardware support changes of the Mac Mini 7,1. Our project relied on the Mac Mini to provide us with the necessary hardware to be able to build and support virtual environment for small research institutions to perform ETL process on longitudinal databases for analysis purposes.
Has anyone considered or using an alternative to Mac Mini Server and what are they?
I use 3x Intel NUC D54250WYK boxes for my Homelab. The only downsides for me are the 16Gb RAM limit and only one NIC.
On the install, the keyboard disappears as soon as esxi starts to load, any ideas ?
The keyboard is a plain old hp one that's works on lots of other platforms.
I guess you didn't read the post? 🙂
What post? I have read this page multiple times and still can't find a mention of what to do if your keyboard doesn't work.
Also your link is broken for the esxi download. When you try to download it from Mega it says error. Do you have a mirror somewhere else ?
Correction mega is not compatible with safari and gives a stupid error message
Hi William,
nice to see that there are still some guys within VMware that care about officially unsupported hardware and help the community to get it working with ESXi - thanks for your and Charles Monnet's work on this and thanks for sharing it!
Just a note: instead of installing the vghetto-apple-macmini71-hdd.vib to enable the HDD you could also install my custom sata-xahci VIB that also enables this (8086:9c03) and a lot of other unsupported SATA AHCI controllers. For details see http://vibsdepot.v-front.de/wiki/index.php/Sata-xahci
Andreas
This is awesome. Thank you for the ISO, the VIBs, and this whole blog in general 🙂
I think I asked this somewhere else already, but haven't seen anyone chime in... Any idea if it's possible to get Thunderbolt storage to work in ESXi on the new Macmini7,1?
oh, wait, you did reply on my other post. thanks 🙂 i'll just repost that link here. https://communities.vmware.com/message/2388450#2388450
What would it entail to build a "generic" thunderbolt storage driver? Is that even possible? (this may be a very stupid question).
So to do dual drives you need to order the Fusion 1TB bundle which gives a 1TB 5400rpm mechanical HDD and a 128GB PCIE SSD which tend to be much faster then the regular SATA equipped variants. Putting cost aside I wonder how three of these would fair in a VSA setup. Perhaps even utilise the second thunderbolt port as Ethernet aswell. Any thoughts?
HI William,
I just installed on a MAC Mini 7.1 i7/3.0GHZ/16GB/1TB Fusion Drive and I can confirm it worked well with no issues.
The Apple thunderbolt to Ethernet was also recognized as a second NIC.
Datastores show up as 113GB PCIe SSD and 931GB NON-SSD LUNs.
Is there any chance to boot from SDHC memory card in order to save USB ports for other nice things?
I tried, but the mem-card was not recognized in the VMWare installer (when you select the target drive).
Thanks a lot again for this very interesting blog!
Helmar
Is anyone here tried the installer .iso in Macmini7,2? We have experience in running ESXi on Macmini6,2 with Core i7 quad-core CPU and interested to get another Macmini7,2 with Core i7 now. So we wanna double confirm the installer works on Macmini7,2 before placing order. Thanks.
We managed to borrow a Macmini7,1 to perform a test installation and the installer works fine. However, we still haven't had any chance to get a Macmini7,2 to test that. William (or any reader), please kindly share any info/experience if you ever tried that or heard of any successfully story on Macmini7,2 hardware. Thanks.
I suspect it should work as well, but I don't have access to a Mini 7,2 to confirm.
I just tired to install on a mac mini 7,2 (late 2014) and it does not show the HD. Only the External USB Stick.
Any workaround William?
Kenneth are you talking about Mac Mini 7.1?
When you go to Configuration>Storage>add Storage>select (disk/Lun) it is empty? Which configuration does your MM have?
Mine are MAC Mini 7.1 i7/3.0GHZ/16GB/1TB Fushion Drive and they off 128GB PCIe SSD and 1TB HDD.
BTW, I added a second thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter and after reboot it was recognized.
So now 3 1GB NICs are available, one internal, two via the Thunderbolt.
Hello,
Is the 512GB PCIe-based Flash Storage also supported ?
Olivier
It should work but I have no way of confirming
I just got my new MacMini 7.1 with the 512GB SSD option and ran the install using the ESXi-5.5u2p03-MacMini-7-1-HDD.iso (Thanks, BTW). It doesn't seem to want to install to the SSD as I never get a prompt to do so.
Do I need to always boot with the USB?
This is what I get when issueing the following command....
~ # esxcli storage core device list
t10.ATA_____APPLE_SSD_SM0256F_______________________S1K4NYDFC05446______
Display Name: Local ATA Disk (t10.ATA_____APPLE_SSD_SM0256F_______________________S1K4NYDFC05446______)
Has Settable Display Name: true
Size: 239372
Device Type: Direct-Access
Multipath Plugin: NMP
Devfs Path: /vmfs/devices/disks/t10.ATA_____APPLE_SSD_SM0256F_______________________S1K4NYDFC05446______
Vendor: ATA
Model: APPLE SSD SM0256
Revision: UXM2
SCSI Level: 5
Is Pseudo: false
Status: on
Is RDM Capable: false
Is Local: true
Is Removable: false
Is SSD: true
Is Offline: false
Is Perennially Reserved: false
Queue Full Sample Size: 0
Queue Full Threshold: 0
Thin Provisioning Status: yes
Attached Filters:
VAAI Status: unknown
Other UIDs: vml.010000000053314b344e5944464330353434362020202020204150504c4520
Is Local SAS Device: false
Is USB: false
Is Boot USB Device: false
No of outstanding IOs with competing worlds: 32
After doing more research and trying a few things I resolved the issue above.... you need to follow the instructions here... http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2013/01/configure-apple-mac-mini-to-default.html to make the USB drive the default at reboot.
Once you do this and boot with the USB, you will now be presented with the option to install ESXi to the SSD drive.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: Remember to set the SSD drive back to the default boot device after successfully installing ESX.
Hi William,
Thank you for such an informative blog. I've been wanting to setup ESXI on Mac Devices for a while now. I just bought a MacMini iCore7 - 16g and a 2TB Fusion. After burning your update#3 to DVD and booting up from an external superdrive, the install process just stalls @ initializing scheduler. I have read through the post and don't think I am missing anything. Can you offer some guidance please?
Jim
Two things you could try: 1) double check download wasn't corrupt, you'd be surprise how frequently this has happened. Maybe switch different browser 2) If you have USB device, see if you can create a bootable one using something like unetbootin and see if you have same problem 3) update the firmware on the Mac Mini, I know this has solved install issues on other Mac platforms
Hi,
I was able to get ESXi 6.0 running on a Mac mini 7.1/i7/16GB/2TB Fusion, using Unetbootin. The hypervisor actually runs from an USB memory pin -- not sure if that is good or bad, but at least it works.
Two issues, however.
* I can only get the SSD part of the 2TB fusion drive to show up. How did you get the spinning platters to show?
* Is there any other way to manage the ESXi than a vSphere Client running on a Windows virtual machine? I'd much rather run a web console...
rgds,
~robinL
1) The VIB noted in this post should fix the drive issue you're referring to.
2) You can use VCSA (vCenter Server Appliance) which provides you with a web interface. It's eval for 60days and after that, you'll need a license. Another option is using VMware Fusion/Workstation http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2014/07/vmware-fusion-tech-preview-2-can-now-connect-to-esxi-vcenter-server.html
1) Thanks, i'll look into the VIB. First i guess i need to learn what a VIB is and how to apply it though 🙂
2) With my current budget, i guess whatever's cheaper goes. Thanks for the _vmWare_ Fusion link. I'll look into that as well. What's nice for con-fusion is that we're now talking of both vmWare Fusion and Apple Fusion Drives. I guess you know how much fun it can be to google for Fusion Drives with vmWare products...
Thank you! It was the USB trick that worked. I'm up and running, now to copy all my VM's over to it and retire my huge power hungry dual xeon dell 2950's heater noise machines! 🙂
Glad to hear!
William, May I ask you for more advice? As you know the MacMini's have one limitation - HD space and redundancy. If I start adding more Mini's to my lab, what do you suggest I put in place to address that? I had purchased a 18TB Drobo last year for just that reason but the upgrade to ESXi 5.5 killed that off with NFS2.
Should I look for a VMWare certified NAS to host my VM's via ethernet or can I connect multiple Mini's to a thunderbolt NAS?
Thank you,
Jim
You have several options. If you're interested in NFS, which I would say is probably the easiest with the Mac Min's given their limited IO connectivity, any NFSv3 solution would work. Given the Mac Mini platform is not supported, you don't necessary have to look for an NFS system on HCL, I would bet that you probably won't be find home lab grade hardware on there as everything is meant for the Enterprise, but doesn't to check out. I would also recommend doing some searches online as I'm sure many people have used variety of solutions including just regular Linux NFS Server or Microsoft SMB w/NAS support. Again, your performance will vary based on these solutions.
If you're interested in Thunderbolt type storage, I personally haven't done anything with it as I'm not aware of any "officially" supported TB Storage platforms for either Mini's or even Mac Pro (which is on the HCL).
However, I have heard of two successful use of TB based storage which you can find https://communities.vmware.com/message/2388450#2388450 and http://vcdx181.com/stage-x-homelab-expansion.html
Good Luck
Since I received this and installed ESXi I have not been successful in installing or setting up a Mac OS VM at all. Despite following all the guides on vmware.com Is there some special way to get this to work? This is essentially why I invested in the Mini's.
What OS X version are you trying to install? The VMware documentation goes through this pretty thoroughly, so I would be surprise if you had issues unless you somehow had a corrupted image?
I've tried Yosemite & Mavericks.
Here's what I use to install Mavericks http://partnerweb.vmware.com/GOSIG/MacOSX_10_9.html#installation1 & I normally create an ISO from the OS X download using http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/159955/howto-create-bootable-mavericks-iso
The process is same for Yosemite, but I know there were some early issues and we recommended upgrading versus building a new Yosemite instance. Give this a try if you haven't already. It might also help to share the steps you've taken if you still can't get this going and what error/messages you're seeing.
The ISO method worked for me, I had followed that VMware post a few times already and it failed. I will say that upgrading to Yosemite would not be recommended, the VM performance was/is horrible. I am planning on redoing the VM(s) in Mavericks only and will also test out OSX Server.
Thank you,
Jim
You know William, I just don't get it. I think, my ESXi server auto updated and am now no longer able to install Mac OS via either method now? The VMware knowledge base article just doesn't work and the ISO method gives an error now stating that it requires the .app.
The knowledge base article just stuck in the EFI boot manager screen.
Here are some screen shots to show what I am seeing:
ISO Method
http://s22.postimg.org/d9tyuzdbl/Screen_Shot_2015_01_28_at_12_16_25_PM.png
Host Info:
http://s27.postimg.org/9s0uu9ykz/Screen_Shot_2015_01_28_at_12_46_51_PM.png
DMG Method
http://s27.postimg.org/3xlge1ahf/Screen_Shot_2015_01_28_at_12_46_04_PM.png
Thank you!
Jim,
ESXi does not "auto update", so you would have had to either manually patched it or someone else did.
What version of the Mac Mini do you have? And what version of the virtual HW are you using? As I said, this is something that many people have been able to do, so I'm a bit surprise to see you're having issues.
Hi William,
I had attached screenshots on my previous post with all that info. I updated VSphere yesterday and am now able to install without any issues, thank you for your support!.
Have you ran into and solved the screen resolution issue on a Yosemite VM yet? It's quite a challenge.
Best,
Jim
It could be interesting to have a page about Mac Mini 7,2 and 7,3 compatibility with ESXi.
What do we currently know about these two models ?
Olivier,
If you would like to send me 7,2 & 7,3 model, then I would be more than welcome to confirm for you. Else, the best I can say is it *should* work as these all derive from new 7,x models. It seems that 7,2 might just be a diff CPU, so maybe the same for 7,3. Remember, the Mac Mini's are not an officially supported platform and the work that's been done at VMware has all been volunteered efforts. So please keep that in mind
I have a Mac Mini 7,1 and when installing VMWare ESXi 5.5, the installer won't complete because my USB Keyboard will not allow me to press "Enter" to have the installation complete. Any suggestions? Thanks.
Are you using the latest 5.5p03? I know someone else had reported something similar but once they used the latest image, they didn't have problems with USB-based keyboards
That did it. Thanks!
Awesomness! Thanks for the ready ISO
Looking for some advice regarding Mac Mini 7,1 (1.4G/8GB/500GB) with ESXI - with ESXI 3 VM's - 2x OSX Yosemite, 1x openSUSE 13.2 all the VM's run really really slowly - unusable infact. On the same machine with the VM's running on Fusion they are all usable and work fine. Any ideas?
Having same issue , did you ever resolve? @William is this expected?
Unfortunately we never got a response Freddy and eventually gave up. Have now found a way of installing the needed software in OSX so that we don't need an opensuse VM anymore. And just brought some extra Mac minis as the virtualisation performance of esxi was rubbish on the platform. Weird as on fusion all was ok but things like headless auto start weren't available.
Does the iso you provided also include the vghetto-apple-thunderbolder-ethernet.vib?
If you're using the latest ESXi 5.5 image, you won't need it.
Scratch that... just inserted the Thunderbolt to Ethernet and restarted the ESXi server and viola!!! It's there and works like a champ.
Hi,
I just give a try with the ISO file on Update 3 (11/7) and it works perfect!. I will be testing a few virtual machines and hopefully not getting into issues :).
The Mac Mini model is A1347.
Thanks a lot!
How can i uninstall Esxi from Mac Mini and back to installing mac?
You can run OSX Recovery with Internet connection.
https://support.apple.com/en-hk/HT201314
You may need to use the Disk Utility tool inside to remove all the partitions created by ESXi (I assume you install ESXi on the internal hard drive instead of using USB thumb drive).
Thank You.
I have deleted all the partitions using Disk Utility in recovery internet mode, using Internet recovery to reinstall mac now. Thx
hey, i am trying to boot into recovery but no key combination is working (using a logitech wireless keyboard)
search around and found the alt key works, but still nothing.
Did you run into any issues booting into recovery?
Thanks for this awesome post. I am trying to install a fresh download of vSphere Hypervisor 6 onto the HDD of the new Mac Pro but its not recognizing the drive. Any tips on how to get it to recognize the SSD? I see that you or someone edited the ISO file to include the drivers for the new HDD. I would love try and create one for 6. Any advice?
Hi Michael,
Yes, this is a known issue. You can find the workaround here http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2015/07/heads-up-esxi-5-x-6-0-unable-to-detect-newer-apple-mac-pro-61-local-ssd-device.html
The link for ESXi-5.5u2p03-MacMini-7-1-HDD.iso is no more valid. Is it possible to reupload a new mirror ?
Thank you
I'm also interested in the link being renewed please.
And Thanks!
Hi William Lam,
We have many Mac Mini 7.1 which will be used as ESXi server. I have a customized ESXi 5.5 U3 installation iso as well as usb created for unattended installation. Simply plug in the usb stick on Mac mini and hold Option key, then select the usb (EFI) and ESXi installation will be started and completed without any further interaction. My challenge is that how to get the ESXi installation remotely through an automated fashion, such as netboot or PXE boot? I tried to use DeplymentStudo but it does not work as it cannot capture and create entire disk on Mac Mini disk where ESXi installation is residing on with many partitions. It can only pick and create one partition. Seems Mac Mini does not support PXE boot either.
Thanks a lot for your help.
David
Hi David,
That's correct, there's not a way to PXE Install ESXi on Apple platform as they use an Apple-specific protocol for booting.
Hi William,
Thanks for your info and response. One more question, do you know Mac Mini 6.2 supports ESXi 5.5 U3? I have Mini 7.1 and I am able to install ESXi 5.5 U3 using USB stick without issue. But just realized that same USB stick boots with purple screen on Mini 6.2. Could not figure out the root cause yet but wondering if ESXi 5.5 U3 can be installed on Mini 6.2. I have a USB stick with ESXi 5.5 U2 (copied from your site) and that boot and install on Mini 6.2 fine, no issue there.
Thanks a lot for your help!
David
I don't have a Mac Mini 6,2 so I can't say if ESXi 5.5u3 should work or not. However, I know 5.5u2 still had the issue (http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2014/09/how-to-build-custom-esxi-iso-for-apple-mac-mini.html) so you may need to create a custom ISO. I know this has been fully resolved with ESXi 6.x but not sure if they plan to back port the changes to 5.5.x code base. It should be simple enough to build a custom ISO or just use ESXi 6.x 🙂
Hi William,
Found out ESXi 5.5 U3 can be installed on Mini 6.2. I just went through a manual install process and it went through successfully. What I have done is to use your custom.tgz as well as ghettotize-esxi-iso.sh, along with ESXi 5.5 U3 original ISO to create a customized ESXi 5.5 U3 ISO (your instruction on the web site). I created a USB stick from this ISO and install ESXi 5.5 U3 on Mini 6.2 manually without issue. The purple screen I got is only when I modified the boot.cfg and created a ks.cfg to do a unattended installation. Here are the changes I made and please let me know if you see the root cause:
1. on a Linux box, mkdir /tmp/etc/ks
2. cd to /tmp/etc/ks, and create a txt file called ks.cfg with following info:
vmaccepteula
rootpw password
install --firstdisk --overwritevmfs
network --bootproto=dhcp --device=vmnic0
reboot
3. cd /tmp
4. tar cvf customks.tgz etc/*
5. copy customks.tgz to the root of usb stick where I have customized ESXi 5.5 ISO created.
6. on root of usb stick. modify boot.cfg with following changes:
kernelopt=ks=file://etc/ks/ks.cfg
Also the last line for the modules= is:
--- /imgdb.tgz --- /imgpayld.tgz --- /customks.tgz
7. That's. The usb stick is ready for unattended installation. It works fine on Mini 7.1 but got purple screen on 6.2.
Any ideas and helps will be really appreciated!
Thanks!
Hi,
I have been running 8, MacMini 7,1 systems since July on ESXi6.0 and have been trying to upgrade them to 6.0u!a and having problems with the additional VIB. I have tried using a CD (error that there were unexpected files, Spotlight! on my first MM) and using Update Manager (VIB is community and not compliant, second MM).
First, did they fix the disk ID in U1a? Do I still need the community driver and if not, can it be removed before updating? I don't use the internal disks as we have a Synology NAS. If I need it, how do I get UM to ignore the compliance?
Thanks,
Mike
PS: I enjoy this blog immensely and have learned a lot. We started with Xserves and ESXi 4.0 and other than limited ports on MacMini, has worked very well for us.
Hi William
Thanks for the great guides. I installed Max OS X 10.10 on a 7.1 Mac Mini with no major problems. But now I have trouble with external USB 3.0 Harddisks that I want to share over afp. I connected them to OS X successfully through 'add USB device' but the harddisks keep disconnecting frequently for some moments or permanently. The same disks were running without problems on a native OS X on the same Mac Mini. Do you have any idea what I can do?
Hi William,
have recently bought a Mac mini 7,1 all flash drive and the VIB patch doesn't work, as the internal (APPLE SSD SM0256G) is not yet seen.
Your patch is for either the fusion combination or the regular mechanical drive ... right?
Any idea on how to solve the issue ? any other VIB ?
William, Thanks for you hard work on this!
Also in the same boat.
VMWare: ESXi 6.0.0, 3568940
Hardware:
Apple Mac Mini 7,1
2.6GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5.
8GB 1600MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM
256GB Flash Storage
Installed custom VIB, No SSD drive detected.
using iSCSI via Thunderbolt Ethernet for now.
ESXi 6.0 Update 2 fixed the issue and now the SSD is recognized.
Thanks!
I run ESXi 5.5 on mac mini 7.2 and SSD 512GB. What would be the easiest way to clone that SSD to another SSD 512GB as a backup clone in case the main SSD fails?
You can try using the free backup tool called XSI Backup https://sourceforge.net/projects/xsibackup/ You can mount a NFS share as a datastore in ESXi running in the Mac mini, then use that to back up the files in the datastore in SSD.
Will this VIB load the Pegasus R6 or R4?
With regards to using a Promise R4 or R6 in ESXi on a Mac mini.
I tried ESXi 6 as a fresh standard install on a Macmini7,1 (2014) and it initially failed to see the Promise. I tracked down this page and download - https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?productId=285&downloadGroup=DT-ESXi50-PROMISE-STEX-407000074 and installed this VIB and this then did allow the ESXi console to see the Promise R4.
The Promise had originally been partitioned as a Mac standard system in RAID5 configuration i.e. GUID partition and a single Journalled HFS+ volume. While the above VIB did allow the ESXi console to see this we found we had to completely reformat it as a VMFS5 drive in order to make it then allocatable to a Mac guest VM running on the ESXi host.
Note: The RAID5 is still being done in hardware by the Promise itself.
I would very much prefer that a Mac guest VM be able to directly access a GUID partitioned and Journalled HFS+ volume. Is there any way to achieve this?
With 6.5, the problem with the PCIe SSD seems to have resurfaced. After a successful boot, ESXi would randomly timeout on Samsung PCIe SSD. Installing the VIB that you've built doesn't seem to resolve the issue, though. I was able to install 6.0 U2 and then upgrade via CLI to 6.5, but would randomly hang due to disk issue.
Can you try disabling the AHCI Native Driver? Run the following command and then reboot esxcli system module set --enabled=false --module=vmw_ahci and see if that helps?
I'm not able to run the commands before the AHCI driver start to timeout. This happens fairly quickly immediately after boot, and once the driver reports issue, all disk access cause the hypervisor to hang. Any chance that you can build an install ISO with your modified AHCI driver installed and native vmw_ahci driver disabled?
Hi Stan,
This happens before ESXi starts booting up. You usually have few seconds to hit SHIFT+O to add the option in. If you're unable to, then the other option is to create a bootable 6.5 installer on USB, then update the boot.cfg to include the line which then you don't need to do this by hand. Please see http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2017/01/esxi-6-5-support-for-apple-mac-pro-61.html (this would allow you to not load the Native Driver), perform the install and then completely disable it after the install (assuming this is the problem for the 7,1 mini's)
Thanks for the article and write-up, and that fixed the issue! I hope VMware releases and update soon on the new native AHCI driver.
Hi! I'm trying to update my macmini 7.1 to ESXi 6.5, via cd-rom, but the installer hangs at USB modules and I cannot proceed further as my keyboard freezes.
My attached USB devices are:
- Sandisk USB (ESXi Boot)
- Lacie CD-ROM drive
- USB keyboard
Detached Samsung external disk as storage @ install time. My internal 1tb disk is not used.
I'm running ESXi 6u2 and patches without problems.
Installed ESXi 6.0 on my MAC mini 7,3 using the custom ISO provided. However, I cannot access host via IP address. I can ping the host IP from the host but cannot ping anything else from the host. Is there a different driver for the NIC on 7,3 minis ?
I actually have a MAC mini 7,1. Installed VMWare ESXi6.0 and it immediately detected the NIC. I'm up and running ! Thanks.
Actually I have: 2.6 GHz Core i5 (I5-4278U)
Intro. October 16, 2014 Disc. None
Order MGEN2LL/A Model A1347 (EMC 2840)
Family Late 2014 ID Macmini7,1
RAM 8 GB VRAM 1.5 GB*
Storage 1 TB HDD Optical None*