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You are here: Home / ESXi / Updates to USB Network & NVMe Community Driver for ESXi 7.0 Update 3

Updates to USB Network & NVMe Community Driver for ESXi 7.0 Update 3

11.11.2021 by William Lam // 16 Comments

Happy Thursday! I know many of you have been asking about the status and support for ESXi 7.0 Update 3 and the popular USB Network Native Driver for ESXi. It has taken a bit longer as Songtao (the Engineer behind the Fling) has also been extremely busy and was also recently on PTO. Although I know this is something folks use extensively, I do also want to remind everyone that this is provided as a Fling, which means it is developed and supported as time permits. I will certainly do my best to help get new releases out aligning with ESXi updates and as a reminder, a new version of the USB Fling will ALWAYS be required for major releases of ESXi, which also includes update releases.

In addition to supporting ESXi 7.0 Update 3, there are also a couple of minor enhancement/fixes, which you can checkout the release notes for more details.

As the title mentions, we also have an update for the Community NVMe Driver for ESXi Fling and this will only benefit customers running ESXi on the Apple Mac Mini 2018 or Apple Mac Pro 2019 and wanting to use ESXi 7.0 or newer. For more details, please check out the release notes.

More from my site

  • Sonnet Solo5G Multi-Gig (1G/2.5G/5G) USB Adapter works with ESXi
  • Supported chipsets for the USB Network Native Driver for ESXi Fling
  • VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) using USB Network Adaptor
  • USB Network Native Driver for ESXi Fling now supports vSphere 8!
  • USB Network Adapters without using the USB Network Native Driver for ESXi

Categories // ESXi, Home Lab Tags // ESXi 7.0 Update 3, fling, NVMe, usb ethernet adapter, usb network adapter

Comments

  1. *protectedJeff Newman says

    11/11/2021 at 1:13 pm

    May it's time for this to stop being a fling and become incorporated into the hypervisor. After VMware deprecated so much existing hardware with version 7, maybe it's time for them to give more back to the community.

    Reply
    • William Lam says

      11/11/2021 at 1:27 pm

      Please voice this through your VMware account team. This is MY way of continuing to give back to community but it’s not just hearing it from me but directly from customers and through channels like your account reps, which will speak volumes in addition to channels like the Fling

      Reply
  2. *protectedTom says

    09/22/2022 at 7:58 am

    The Fling hasn't been updated since May of 2021. Now 7.0U3g is released, I'm waiting for an update on the Fling. Could you tell us how long I have to wait for this update? My setup is dependant on it.

    Reply
    • William Lam says

      09/22/2022 at 9:18 am

      Which Fling are you asking about? The USB Fling was updated as of this year (May 2022) and it should work for latest 7.0 Update 3 releases

      Reply
  3. *protecteddcasota says

    09/28/2022 at 4:59 am

    Unfortunately the PowerCLI add-esxsoftwarepackage process of creating an iso with ESXi7.0U3g including USB Fling (May 2022) actuelly doesn't work anymore and export-esximageprofile -ExportToIso fails with 'expected attribute swplatforms'.

    ESXi with the older fling version 47140841 stops with the 'failed to check acceptance levels' issue which has been fixed with the May 2022 version.

    It really would be nice to see the USB Fling built-in productized in vSphere 8 and in latest vSphere 7 versions as well! The leverage for edge devices will be tremendous.

    Reply
  4. *protectedbaastow says

    11/10/2022 at 2:43 am

    Hallo William, is there an update on the Fling for esxi 8, usb network adapter.
    Greetings

    Reply
  5. *protectedAmnesia says

    11/12/2023 at 8:17 am

    Since VMware has closed down flings webpage, is there any change you can provide the link for the community NVMe driver again?

    Reply
    • William Lam says

      11/12/2023 at 9:29 am

      vmwa.re/flings

      Reply
      • *protectedAmnesia says

        11/12/2023 at 12:07 pm

        Thank you very much William 🙂 Will nvme-community-driver_1.0.1.0-3vmw.700.1.0.15843807-component-18902434 work with ESXi 8.0.2 as well?

        Reply
        • *protectedAmnesia says

          11/12/2023 at 12:55 pm

          It works 😉

          Reply
        • *protectedSemoTech says

          11/12/2023 at 12:56 pm

          Amnesia, in my testing it only worked with 8.0U1c (build# 22088125). When I did an upgrade in-place to 8.0U2 (build# 22380479) the community_)NVMe fling driver loaded, but failed to enable the 2TB on-board PCIe NVMe of my 2018 MacMini, so the Datastore was lost. I had to revert back to 8.0U1c. Let us know how your testing goes...

          Really wish there was a fix for this....

          Reply
        • William Lam says

          11/12/2023 at 1:00 pm

          No. It’s been depreciated and it’s only supported w/7.x, which has been case prior to Fling site going down

          Reply
      • *protectedKyaw Mya Tun Tun says

        11/15/2023 at 12:28 am

        can i want to khow about community NVMe driver again ? download link

        Reply
        • William Lam says

          11/15/2023 at 3:34 am

          Read blog post

          Reply
  6. *protectedLennart Koenraads says

    12/11/2023 at 12:13 am

    Hello,
    I need support for ESX 7.3o (build VMware ESXi, 7.0.3, 22348816) for a club3d cac-1420 USB adapter with the RTL8156 chipset.
    I am installing: ESXi703-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-55634242-component-19849370.zip, but every time i reboot the Physical adapters don't show the wright speed.
    Can you help me with this one?

    Reply
  7. *protectedSabarrudin Lee says

    05/04/2024 at 7:31 am

    Hi William,

    Trying to update my home lab NUC10 from 7.0U3g to 7.0U3n using the base image ISO provided by VMware but the installer doesn't detect my ADATA NVME drive. Will probably need to build a custom image for this using the Fling (have emailed Eric for the download link).
    Any idea if the 7.0U3n image has support for NVME drives or would it be better to use vSphere8 instead?
    Thanks in advance.

    Reply

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William is Distinguished Platform Engineering Architect in the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Division at Broadcom. His primary focus is helping customers and partners build, run and operate a modern Private Cloud using the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) platform.

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