I recently participated in a special VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9 event at the Silicon Valley VMUG, which was held at the Broadcom headquarters in Palo Alto, California.
I had a fantastic time at the event, lots of great engagement from attendees, kudos to Frances Wong and the entire VMUG team for putting the event together!
With the huge amount of interests from the community in running VCF 9, I thought this would be a great event to showcase a VCF 9 lab setup using the popular Minisforum MS-A2. The exact same VCF 9 lab setup will also be used for the upcoming VMware {Code} Hackathon at VMware Explore, so definitely sign up if you are interested in playing with the MS-A2 at Explore!
| Quantity | Item | Function | Link | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2-3*** | Minisforum MS-A2 (7945HX) Barebones* | VCF host | amzn.to/46xuK3X | $789 USD |
| 2 | Crucial 128GB Kit (2x64GB) DDR5 SODIMM | ESXi memory | amzn.to/4bcpXFJ | $279.99 USD |
| 2 | SK Hynix Gold P31 500GB NVME | ESXi Install + ESX-OS-Data + VMFS Volume | amzn.to/4eKEQkm | $44.09 USD |
| 2 | Sabrent Rocket 1TB NVMe | NVMe Tiering | amzn.to/4ltaTYM | $59.99 USD |
| 2 | Samsung 990 EVO 2TB NVMe | vSAN ESA | amzn.to/4lQC403 | $141.50 USD |
| 1 | MikroTik CRS304-4XG-IN** | Routing Switch | amzn.to/44J1rt4 | $188 USD |
| 1 | Sodola 4 x 2.5GbE + 2 x 10GbE | Managed Switch | amzn.to/4lQjZOw | $69 USD |
*Note: The barebones 7945HX kits all seem to have sold out on Amazon, pretty sure I had nothing to do with it! 😅 There are other non-barebones kit that you could also purchase from Amazon for a slightly higher price or purchase directly from Minisforum, which may have varying delivery options based on your region or you can simply wait for Amazon to restock.
**Note: For those interested in a 10GbE option, I have ordered the MikroTik CRS304-4XG-IN, which I will be using for my own personal lab setup. Since the CRS304 is not SFP+ like the CRS305 series, you will need an SFP+ to RJ45 adapter on the MS-A2, which I am using the 10Gtek SFP+ to RJ45 which are reasonably priced and works with the MS-A2.
***Note: For those looking to deploy a "minimal" footprint of VCF 9, 2 x MS-A2 will be sufficient. For those wanting to deploy workloads like VKS, DSM, etc. then having 3 x MS-A2 would be the recommendation. I personally have 3 x MS-A2 for my lab setup, which has allowed me to exercise all feature sets of VCF 9 including many of the VCF Add-On services like DSM, Private AI Services, AVI Load Balancing, etc.
Finally, I have had several folks ask if I will be blogging or sharing detailed instructions for setting up the MS-A2 to get VCF 9 up and running, the answer is YES! I just need to find some time but I have put together a bunch of automation and scripts to assist with the setup, especially as we will be building a few more of these for the Explore Hackathon, so anytime you need to do something more than once, it means you should consider automating it. Stay tuned for more details!
For those attending VMware Explore this year, consider joining the Hackathon but also check out the breakout I will be presenting with my good friend Alan Renouf CLOB1201LV - Deploying Minimal VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 Lab that will share even more tips/tricks for running VCF 9 in a lab environment!
I'd love to run vcf9 in my home lab, but vmug still haven't made licenses available, despite ensuring that paying for advantage would get us day 1 access
So where are we supposed to get the licenses and downloads for this?
I know the team is actively working on enabling keyless entitlement for VMUG Advantage members, no timelines at this point
Hi William, thank you for your wonderful articles, I'm very glad that there are people like you.
Lately I've been seeing a lot of articles about minisforum, which I had, working on its side, because due to overheating of the ssd there were memory errors, tell me, did you manage to solve the problem with overheating?
I've personally not had any issues with the MS-A2, I've definitely been putting it through its paces for good month+ now and I know many others have also deployed without any issues minus the noise when you do put load. I can't speak for other Minisforums systems, not sure if you've tried to RMA the system or contact the vendor?
Thanks William for the BOM. I've been watching your articles on the MS-A2 previously, but was wondering what "else" it took to have a complete system for VCF 9. It kinda feels like the requirements are "moving" a little from VCF5.2 to 9. Do you think this lab, 3 units of the MS-A2, will suffice for a few years? Pretty good investment for a home lab, just want it to work for a few years.
And I just noticed you have 2 systems verses 3? I think I'd rather have 3 units so I don't have to play around trying to get things to work. Thoughts? Can I get the same VCF experience with 2 units?
If you don't want to apply any tweaks/workarounds, then yes 3 x MS-A2 would be the ideal setup. See my detailed write-up https://williamlam.com/2025/06/vmware-cloud-foundation-vcf-on-minisforum-ms-a2.html on various ways to deploy VCF w/MS-A2 for more details
I reached out to support/sales team at Minisforum. The MS-A2 7945HX barebones unit will be back in stock mid August on the Minisforum site. I would imagine the same stock situation will be reflected on their AMZ store.
Hopefully the price doesn't increase too much.
Update - They are shipping different CPUs with slightly different clock speeds! Ryzen 9 7940HX.
William, Are you doing single NIC 10GB connections for VSAN or 2 for failover? Considering the MikroTik CRS304-4XG-IN only has 4 10GB ports if you have 2 Minisforum MS-A2 (7945HX) this would work but if you have 3 HOST you'd be short on ports. I guess the real question for home labs can a single 10GB pass the required checks on the installer per host. If so then you could have this switch and 3 host.
One of the enhancements with VCF 9 and the VCF Installer is that single NIC is officially supported, so while you will want to have more than one for production setup, lab environment can get away with one and there are no workarounds needed to pass the pre-check, this is simply out of the box. We do still want to have 10GbE, so you will need to apply the workaround (https://williamlam.com/2025/06/ultimate-lab-resource-for-vcf-9-0.html) to bypass 10GbE pre-check which still exists in VCF 9
Hi William Thanks for the article. Did the system fully recognize the 128 GB? I’ve been looking at the Minisforum MS-A2, which officially supports up to 96 GB
Yes, 128GB works 🙂
Hi William, been watching for the availability of the A2-7945, however they have released A2-7940. Looks the same as 7945. Will it work for vcf9? Getting ready to purchase 3 units.
Thanks for your amazing effort on ALL your articles
hm, not seeing 7940 on US site but the CPU looks to be 8c/16t which would NOT work for full VCF 9 stack … at minimal, you’d want 12c/24t
From AMD https://www.amd.com/en/products/processors/laptop/ryzen/7000-series/amd-ryzen-9-7940hx.html
and amazon listing
https://www.amazon.com/MINISFORUM-Workstation-2xUSB-C-Display-Support/dp/B0F996HX45?th=1&linkCode=sl1&tag=vghetto-20&linkId=4d6a3fea256086bf8cd5c64e1f997f2b&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl
ah, good to see it’s still 32t 😅
looks like all the same slots so all the other componenets on the BOM you shared should work. Hopefully soon I can start learning VCF to move career forward.
Thanks for all your help!
Yup. Same form factor and perhaps it’s just slightly cheaper (no expert on AMD CPU numbering convention)