When it comes to selecting a platform for a vSphere Homelab, there are many options which include building your own "whitebox" system. For the large majority of folks, the preference is to purchase a ready to use kit such as an Intel NUC or Supermicro which both extremely popular. These systems not only work well but their form factor is also ideal for home offices where space is always at a premium.
With that said, there are many other small form factor (SFF) platforms that exists out in the market and not just Intel-based systems, but also AMD SFF kits which are being introduced and have been getting many inquiries about. As someone who keeps a close eye on this market for new and interesting platforms, I have been re(sharing) some of these new updates on Twitter.
Although Twitter is great way to share and discuss news, it is not the best place to consolidate this type of information that can easily be searched. This was one the motivation for putting together this post for both informational awareness but also something that can be updated over time. This was certainly a challenge when asked about other SFF options, especially in the AMD space where I was not able to easily point folks to. Below is a collection of SFF for both Intel and AMD that I have come across, some of which are currently being used for vSphere Homelabs and others having the potential given their specification. In addition, I suspect many of the kits below which report 32GB of memory as their max should be able to go up 64GB as I have shown in the past with NUC platform.
If folks have other SFF kits they would like to share or confirm that works with latest versions of vSphere, feel free to leave a comment which can help others in the VMware Community.
Intel
| Model | CPU | Memory | Storage | Network | ESXi Verify |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HPE ProDesk Mini | Intel 9th Gen i7 | up to 32GB | 2 x M.2 | 1 x NIC | Yes |
| Model | CPU | Memory | Storage | Network | ESXi Verify |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lenovo ThinkStation P340 Tiny | Intel 10th Gen i9 | up to 64GB | 2 x M.2 | 1 x NIC | TBD |
| Model | CPU | Memory | Storage | Network | ESXi Verify |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CompuLab Fitlet2 | Intel Atom | up to 16GB | 1 x M.2 | up to 2 x NIC | Yes |
| Model | CPU | Memory | Storage | Network | ESXi Verify |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cirrus7 Nimbus v3 | Intel 9th i9 | up to 64GB | 1 x M.2 + 2 x 2.5" | up to 2 x NIC | Not Yet |
| Model | CPU | Memory | Storage | Network | ESXi Verify |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zotact ZBOX M Series Edge | Intel 10th Gen i5 | up to 64GB | 2 x M.2 | 2 x NIC | Yes |
| Model | CPU | Memory | Storage | Network | ESXi Verify |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlast Monos | Intel 9th Gen i5 | up to 32GB | 1 x M.2 | 2 x NIC | Not Yet |
| Model | CPU | Memory | Storage | Network | ESXi Verify |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CompuLab MintBox 3 | Intel 9th Gen i9 | up to 128GB | 2 x M.2 + 4 x 2.5" | 2 x NIC | Not Yet |
| Model | CPU | Memory | Storage | Network | ESXi Verify |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lenovo ThinkCenter M700 Tiny | Intel 6th Gen i7 | up to 32GB | 1 x M.2 + 1 x 2.5" | 1 x NIC | Yes |
| Model | CPU | Memory | Storage | Network | ESXi Verify |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shuttle 370R8 | Intel 9th Gen i9 | up to 128GB | 1 x M.2 + 4 x 3.5" | 2 x NIC | Yes |
| Model | CPU | Memory | Storage | Network | ESXi Verify |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shuttle DH370 | Intel 9th Gen i9 | up to 64GB | 1 x M.2 + 1 x 2.5" | 2 x NIC | Yes |
| Model | CPU | Memory | Storage | Network | ESXi Verify |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HPE EliteDesk | Intel 10th Gen i7 | up to 64GB | 2 x M.2 + 1 x 2.5" | 1 x NIC | Yes |
AMD
| Model | CPU | Memory | Storage | Network | ESXi Verify |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ASRock 4x4 BOX-4800U | AMD Ryzen Embedded 4000-Series | up to 54GB | 1 x M.2 + 1 x 2.5" | 2 x NIC | Yes |
| Model | CPU | Memory | Storage | Network | ESXi Verify |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ASRock 4x4 BOX-V1000M | AMD Ryzen Embedded V-Series | up to 32GB | 1 x M.2 + 1 x 2.5" | 2 x NIC | Yes |
| Model | CPU | Memory | Storage | Network | ESXi Verify |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zotac ZBOX M Series Nano | AMD Ryzen 3 | up to 32GB | 1 x M.2 + 1 x 2.5" | 2 x NIC | Not Yet |
| Model | CPU | Memory | Storage | Network | ESXi Verify |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Miniforum DMAF5 | AMD Ryzen 5 | up to 32GB | 1 x M.2 + 1 x 2.5" | 1 x NIC | Not Yet |
| Model | CPU | Memory | Storage | Network | ESXi Verify |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beelink GT-R Mini | AMD Ryzen 5 | up to 32GB | 2 x M.2 | 2 x NIC | Not Yet |
| Model | CPU | Memory | Storage | Network | ESXi Verify |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Asus PN50 | AMD Ryzen 7 | up to 64GB | 1 x M.2 + 1 x 2.5" | 1 x NIC | Not Yet |
| Model | CPU | Memory | Storage | Network | ESXi Verify |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cirrus7 Incus A300 | AMD Ryzen 5 | up to 32GB | 2 x M.2 + 2 x 2.5" | 1 x NIC | Not Yet |
| Model | CPU | Memory | Storage | Network | ESXi Verify |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ASRock DeskMini A300 | AMD Ryzen 4 | up to 64GB | 2 x M.2 + 2 x 2.5" | 1 x NIC | Not Yet |
| Model | CPU | Memory | Storage | Network | ESXi Verify |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ASRock DeskMini X300 | AMD Ryzen 4 | up to 64GB | 2 x M.2 + 2 x 2.5" | 1 x NIC | Not Yet |
| Model | CPU | Memory | Storage | Network | ESXi Verify |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HPE ProLiant Microserver Gen10 | AMD Opteron | up to 32GB | 4 x 3.5" | 4 x NIC | Yes |
Close on the HP ProDesk. Take a look at the HP EliteDesk though. I can confirm it supports 64GB. It can be had with a Thunderbolt 3 port (think 10G Ethernet!) and it has vPro, so it's manageable without a monitor and runs fine headless. It has two M.2 slots as well.
I have a vSAN 7 cluster running on them. Fast little things, if not cheap.
Thanks for the comment Jeff, I've added the HP EliteDesk
The only downside to any of these solutions is that they are all expensive from a student budge perspective. Those of us that are chasing VCP certification, every nickel is critical. It would be nice if there was a home lab option for starving, cough, students.
Take a look at my vmwa.re/homelab project which is a collection from the community on complete vSphere Homelabs which includes setup + cost. Cost is always a factor but I'd also recommend thinking about where you want to go versus where you are at today. If you get too small of a setup, you'll be constrained to certain setups and you may end up spending more in future to expand. NUCs are reasonable price and you can always add more for expansion but some folks may not have luxury and so getting a slightly larger single host can help plan for the future. Best of luck
On tight budget, I recommend older desktops. While these will take more space, but you will gain in both value and performance. VCP was nice to have, but honestly VMWare is no longer the only player in the market. I highly recommend new IT guys to look closely at public cloud experience and certifications.
Public cloud is great and a valuable tool in your IT toolbox, but the large majority of enterprises have and will continue to have a large private cloud footprint in their own datacenters. My recommendation to new IT guys is to understand both private and public cloud technologies and understand where workloads make the most sense to run. Don’t be so quick to jump on the new public cloud hotness and pigeon hole yourself. The real goal is to make private and public clouds seemless to the end user and allow the business to in run both. So having a well rounded knowledge and certification in private and public cloud is best.
... maybe the next Raspberry Pi will be hardware resource sufficient to be an option? The latest Pi 4 is 8G, I would think a Pi 4 with 16GB RAM and something for storage better than USB 3.x, would be an option.
Having a real pc is the option. a Pi is not a desktop, just having the possibility to play a lagging and choppy youtube don't help much. For homelab the cirrus look interesting.
I can confirm that ESXi 7 runs fine on a ProDesk 600 Mini G3 using the HPE custom ESXi 7 image. No special VIB required for the NIC. I have one in my home lab that runs my vCenter 7 instance and a CentOS 7 server running NFS. The physical server has an iCore 5 2.5 GHz CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 500GB SATA HDD from an old laptop. Although, it won’t run headless. You need a monitor and keyboard for DCUI use.
William, thank's for the info. Perhaps it would be interesting to add if these systems have Thunderbolt ports. IMO TB makes a hughe difference as it basically determines if you can add 10 Gb ports or not.
Tom,
Although I'm a fan of TB, the majority of systems out there do NOT have TB outside of Apple Mac and Intel NUC. Perhaps with USB 4 around the corner, we may see more in future but for now, most will not and wanted to keep the summary data high level. I'd still expect folks to do some homework in the detailed specs of each setup they may consider
I have deployed a bunch of Shuttle DH370 boxes running ESXi 6.7. They are fantastic. Dual Intel NICs and you supply your own (desktop-class) Intel CPU. They're relatively quiet and built for 24/7 operation.
The Shuttle SFF PCs are fantastic! I am using the bigger SH370R8 Shuttle XPC Cube which had 4 RAM dimms and 2 PCI-e slots. You can max it with i9 8/16 core desktop CPU and 128 GB RAM.
Thanks for feedback Andrew and Mike7, I've added both the Shuttle boxes
Thanks for adding. Slight typo, the SH370R8 supports both 8th and 9th processors. I am using it with i9-9900. (List at http://global.shuttle.com/products/productsSupportList?productId=2344)
Fixed
https://www.vgemba.net/vmware/Lenovo-ThinkCenter-M700-Tiny/
I've had success using a Lenovo M700 Tiny. Can go up to an i7, 32GB RAM, 1 x M.2 + 1 x 2.5", Single NIC.
Thanks cwestwater, I've added M700 Tiny
ew formatting
Model | CPU | Memory | Storage | Network | PCIe Slots | ESXi Verify
Dell 3431 | Intel 9th Gen i9 | up to 64GB | 1 x M.2, 2x 2.5/3.5 SATA | 2 x NIC | 16x, 4x (HL) | Yes (7.0)
Also has Intel AMT for Remote Mgmt
https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/workstations-isv-certified/new-precision-3431-desktop-workstation/spd/precision-3431-workstation
The specs I built to are here https://binarylandscapes.github.io/homelab/document/main_content/hardware/specifications.html
Also a nice little server from our friends of HPE for our homelabs: the ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus
https://www.servethehome.com/hpe-proliant-microserver-gen10-plus-review-this-is-super/
Thanks Danny, I've added HPE Microserver Gen10. Was this merely a suggestion or did you have ESXi running on this successfully?
The Gen 10 Plus is Intel based and officially supports ESXi. The Gen 10 (non Plus) is AMD based and not certified although I can confirm it runs ESXi without a hitch.
Funny thing is your Gen 10 (non Plus) listing shows a picture of a Gen 10 Plus which have nothing in common.
And the ProDesk is an HP without the E. But now I'm nitpicking 😂
Hello William
Could you specify whether ESX Verify = No means 'Not working' or 'Not yet verified' ?
Right now I'm considering Asus PN50 and I'm wondering what is the issue with it.
You can add Asrock DeskMini A300 and X300 to the list
It means "Not Yet" as mentioned in blog post based on the specs, all of these systems I expect ESXi to run fine on them but obviously, I don't have access to all these kits. As folks try out and confirm, I'll update the blog post.
Thank you for the clarification
It seems most of the issues is related with the NIC drivers.
I'd guess it will be hard to get vsphere 7 to run on most of these machines.
Zibi, I've added both DeskMini A300/X300. Were these both suggestions or have you confirmed they run ESXi fine?
Thanks William 🙂
Asrock seems to work.
I saw once someone mentioning running Vsphere 6.7 u3 on it:
https://communities.vmware.com/message/2872899#2872899
X300 is a refresh done to support latest AMD Renoir APUs like 4700G.
It has very rich disk capabilities considering the size.
The only downside are the IO options.
NIC is RTL8111H and there is only 1 USB-C port, which limits networking options to 5Gb max.
Hello, Esxi does not work with asrock x300
I tried 7.02 and 6.7, the error I got on both was "Failed to initialize acpi subsystem : Failure"
I’m running a four node AFVS cluster on HP prodesk g3 mini 64GB in each m2 nvme 256gn got cache and 1TB SATA SSD for capacity. All using i7-7700T cpu.
The only issue with the prodesk 400 g3 is the crappy onboard Realtek NIC which will not work in esxi 7.
Will there ever be a RTL driver compatible with 7?
Qnap 5GB usb being used for VSAN/VMotion traffic, also external pcie riser connected to the WiFi m2 slot for the Intel I350-T4 NIC.
Make for a small space low power cluster, all of it will be shoe horned into a old Mac Pro desktop case.
William,
I am having TPM issues, it seems they maybe not fully 2.0 compliant. I get attestation failure on each boot. I note there is a issue with the latest NUC also.
Do I need Intel TXT and TPM 2.0 for vmware?
The "Zotact ZBOX Edge" from their M Series has two Realtek NICs [10ec:8168]. Works fine with ESXi 5 and 6 using the community driver but there is no native driver for 7.0 available.
Also, the price is +90€, compared to the Frost Canyon NUC. (ZBOX Edge is nearly a Frost Canyon Clone)
It's a shame. Would be a nice dual-nic SFF.
Hi,
The ASUS PN50 looks interesting with 4800u. 8 Cores and 16 threads. The 4800u is not available until October in the EU and I've one on pre-order.
Anyone get to try one one if the already released models, such as 2500u
Cheers
Hi ,
Running three ASUS Minipc Pn50-Bbr748MD-Csm Ryzen 7 4800U - Ax WiFi - DP in a VSAN cluster on
ESXi 7.0b with the latest USB Native Driver Fling for ESXi 1.6.
The model contains a Realtek nic so its USB dongle galore
//Björn
How did you manage to get the 4800U and from where?
Björn Wikzell, where did you get the PN50 4800Us? We are all going nuts waiting of the 4800U. Hope they make a driver for the NIC soon.
PN50 is now available in several geos including AMER/EMEA https://liliputing.com/2020/09/asus-pn50-mini-pc-with-ryzen-7-4700u-now-available-in-the-us.html
Hi All,
Has anyone got a solution for the Lenovo M700 tiny and the M.2 ssd Drive?
From this site, i picked one up and it was delivered last week.
Spins up esxi 7.0.1 like a dream. BUT the m.2 drive isn't recognised.
From what i can see from googling, its something to do with the M.2 interface or drive not being in the HCI.
And at about 6.6 or a early release of 6.7 this was updated and functionality was lost.
There seems to be a fix of grabbing a old driver from a 6.5 or 6.7 release and overwriting the one in 7.0.1.
HAs anyone else done this, is there any advise on this one?
Peter. Please see https://www.williamlam.com/2019/05/quick-tip-crucial-nvme-ssd-not-recognized-by-esxi-6-7.html for the issue.
Its not related to M.2 interface, but rather the SSD you're using. If you want the best possible experience, use SSDs on the VMware HCL. After that, the brands that usually just work out of the box are Samsung, Intel, and WD. After that, its pure luck with other consumer brands/models.
I appreciate the effort you put into these posts, but most of the machines that state "Yes" in the ESXi verify column don't appear on VMWare's compatibility page:
https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility
In fact, I think the only one that does is the HP Proliant MicroServer
I'm now leary about running "unofficial" hardware with ESXi, after experiencing a SuperMicro board with a C612 chipset work fine with 5.5u3 (which was listed as supported), but corrupted data with v6.5 (which wasn't).
A list of ESXi officially supported SFF machines or Mini-ITX mobo's would be an incredible boon to all us out here wanting to put together a solid, quiet & small machine running ESXi.
ESXi verify != Officially on VMware's HCL. It simply means, someone has verified that it works and I'll try to link to the source.
Majority of folks who run Homelab don't have their gear on the HCL and there are many systems that just work. Yes, there will be systems that no longer work, especially if you're coming from 5.x or even 6.x given those are all EOL now.
If you want the best possible experience, then only use hardware on the VMware HCL but that usually comes at a cost 🙂 You can also check out vmwa.re/homelab which has a collection of systems of all configuration, size, cost that folks are using. There's no one size fits all and the goal of this article was to share other non-typical SFF systems since Intel NUC and Supermicro aren't the only systems out there
Does anyone know if the HPE Microserver Gen10 Plus (Intel) will handle ESXi 5?
Also, does anyone know why they were discontinued?
I have purchased the shuttle XH410G particularly for its size and it has a x16PCIe slot
It is populated with it.
64GB SODIMM
i9-10900
Mellanox Connectx4
I have installed ESXI7u1
The onboard nic was not detected but thanks to William I installed the intel nuc driver and it worked fine.
Still need to get it all configured properly but for the size and amount of power within such a small unit is a win for me.
If i had the extra cash I would of purchased another Xeon nuc but £1200 for just the barebones was a bit too much.
Hi William,
I can confirm that the Shuttle DH470 is working fine with ESXi 7.
I have it populated with an i9 10700, 64GB SODIMM, and 970 PRO SSD 1TB.
All is working out of the box, including dual nics (intel I210AT), and is a lot more powerful than my old NUC i7 10th.
Thank you!
I installed ESXi 7.0u2 on my new Cirrus7 Nimbus v3 with the community-net driver and it seems to be working fine.
My spec is ASRock IMB-1222 (dual Intel NIC), i7-10700T, 64GB RAM, 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe SSD, 1TB Samsung 870 QVO SATA SSD.
Both SSDs and both NICs are recognised, although I've only plugged the 1GbE one into a switch.
If I face any issues, I'll add them here.
Neat little comp guide you got there thx ...
Do any of the intel based nucs have support for ECC RAM ?
I know that the AMD Based ones with the embedded Chip hve it and the U4800 could support it. The A300 from Asroc cant do that, its not even Posting when ECC Memory is installed 🙁
Thx
Yes, only NUC 9 Pro supports ECC https://williamlam.com/2020/01/intel-nuc-9-pro-extreme-first-modular-nuc.html