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VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) on Minisforum MS-A2

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Since launching the MS-01 in 2024, Minisforum has steadily gained popularity for its unique design that sets it apart from established players in the small form factor (SFF) market. Following the successful launch of the MS-01, an Intel-based system, Minisforum had also released an AMD variant in the same form factor called the MS-A1.

Unlike the MS-01 which was fully compatible with VMware ESXi and widely used by the VMware community to deploy the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) platform, the MS-A1 was less ideal due to its use of Realtek-based network adapters, which are not compatible with ESXi.


When Minisforum announced the MS-A2 earlier this year at CES 2025, a proper successor to the MS-01, it generated a lot of excitement within the VMware community, especially for those looking to refresh their lab in preparation for the latest VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) release!

After several months of waiting, the MS-A2 has finally arrived! I have been spending countless hours experimenting with the MS-A2 using different configurations to understand whether it would be an ideal kit for running our newest VCF 9.0 release ?

UPDATE (05/01/26) - To view CPU temperature within vSphere UI, be sure to install the AMD Zen4/Zen5 IPMI Thermal Driver for ESX Fling

UPDATE (04/29/26) - Please make sure to apply the entropy source change or you may observe higher than normal CPU utilization

ProTip: Orders directly from Minisforum may have a longer lead time than with Amazon (this MS-A2 7945HX Barebones kit is currently showing a delivery of next week!)

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VCF 9.0 Offline Depot using Synology

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There are number of methods to serve up the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0 software binaries for hosting an offline depot from running a traditional web server as outlined in the official VCF documentation to running a simple 1-liner Python command to serve up the files directly to the VCF Installer.

If you happen to have a Synology in your lab, you can add the WebStation package and quickly setup a VCF Offline Depot without much hassle.

Note: To download the the required VCF 9.0 software binaries and metadata, you will need to use the new VCF Download Tool (VCFDT) and a valid Broadcom Download Token.

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Deploying VCF 9.0 on a single ESXi host?

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By default, the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0 Installer requires a minimum of 3 ESXi hosts when you select vSAN (OSA or ESA) for storage or 2 ESXi hosts when you choose to use external storage (Fibre Channel VMFS or NFS). When compared to VCF 5.x where vSAN was the only storage option and it required a minimum of 4 ESXi host, this is certainly a welcome change for our users.

With VCF 5.x, it was possible to deploy using just a single ESXi host for the VCF Management Domain and this question has certainly come up a few time since the GA of VCF 9.0 ...

So what happens when you only enter a single ESXi host into the VCF Installer?


As expected, we see a validation error stating that we have not met the minimum number of ESXi hosts ...

However, this is just the default behavior and of course this was something I had looked into early on with VCF Engineering, since this would be an extremely useful capability to allow our users to easily explore VCF 9 using the smallest number of ESXi hosts for lab purposes only, assuming you can meet the Minimal Resources to Deploy VCF 9.0 in a Lab.

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