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Quick Tip - Crucial NVMe SSD not recognized by ESXi 6.7 & 7.0

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If you own or have recently purchased Crucial NVMe SSD such as CT1000P1SSD8 (1TB M.2 NVMe SSD) or CT500P1SSD8 (500GB M.2 NVMe SSD), please be aware that these devices may no be recognized by ESXi after upgrading to the latest release. Thanks to Pete Lindley, (OCTO for End-User Computing), who reached out last week regarding the observation as well as a workaround for the problem. This was also quite timely as I recently purchased a Crucial M.2 NVMe SSD and would have also ran into this problem.

It turns out these Crucial devices were working fine while running on ESXi 6.5 Update 2 but was no longer recognized in latest release of ESXi 6.7 Update 2. It is unclear whether support for these SSDs were removed intentionally or unintentionally, but in either case, these devices are not officially on VMware's Hardware Compatibility List (HCL).

UPDATE (07/29/20) - Over the past few months, I have had a number of folks share feedback that using the trick mentioned below for ESXi 7.0, they have had success of ESXi detecting their NVMe SSD. I wanted to share some of the model and/or vendors that folks have reported success with. I will keep this list updated, so feel free to leave a comment below.

UPDATE (06/13/20) - Thanks to reader Dave, it looks like this trick also works with ESXi 7.0 but the filename has changed. Simply copy nvme.v00 VIB from the ESXi 6.5 Update 2 and replace it on ESXi 7.0 system (either live under /bootbank or part of the installer) but rename the file to nvme_pci.v00 which is the new filename for NVMe driver.

UPDATE (05/23/19) - After speaking with a few folks who took a closer look, the issue is due to the fact that we added support for NVMe 1.3 spec in latest ESXi 6.7 Update 2 release, but because these are "consumer" devices, they did not conform to the latest specification and hence the driver is unable to claim the device. This is another good reminder when using components not on VMware HCL, this is always a risk from a home lab perspective. In general, I know Samsung and Intel NVMe SSD usually works quite well without issues but always good to do some research. I think Engineering is looking to see if there are other workarounds for the future, but for now, you can use the workaround below.

The easy workaround that Pete found was to simply replace the NVMe driver from ESXi 6.7 Update 2 (1.2.2.27-1vmw.670.2.48.13006603) with one found in ESXi 6.5 Update 2 (1.2.1.34-1vmw.650.2.50.8294253). To so do, simply copy nvme.v00 to /bootbank from either an existing ESXi 6.5 Update 2 system or directly from the ISO. Please note, any future updates or patches to the ESXi host will most likely override the updated driver.

64GB memory on the Intel NUCs?

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I just got my hands on a pair of 32GB SODIMM memory modules (64GB total) which I had been waiting to evaluate since last Fall. Apparently, it has taken some time for these high capacity memory modules to be readily available in the consumer market. Even after the announcement of the new 2018 Apple Mac Mini last year, which officially supports 32GB SODIMMS, I was not aware of any vendors who were selling these modules direct to consumers.


My primary interests in these memory modules was whether they would work on the latest Intel NUCs, specifically the Hades Canyon (NUC8i7HNK) which are the prosumer versions of the standard Intel NUCs that many folks use for vSphere Home Labs. Both the standard and Skull/Hades Canyon NUCs all officially support a maximum of 32GB of memory (2x16GB SODIMM), however it been hypothesized by the community that they *should* in theory be able to go up to 64GB, especially as some of the newer CPUs technically state support for it.

UPDATE (10/30/20) - Thanks to Ariel Sanchez who shared the Crucial 2x32GB SO-DIMM also work with the Intel NUC. It was a killer deal during Amazon Prime week, at $164 for 2x32 (64GB) but as of right now, they are going for $219 which is still cheaper than the Samsung which are going for $120 per 32GB SO-DIMM.

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Touch screen + case for the Raspberry Pi 3

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I just purchased a nice little touch screen for my Raspberry Pi 3 (rPI) which I had shared on Twitter yesterday and a number of folks were also interested in the details. First off, I want to give a huge shoutout to Frances Wong who I came to learn about this nifty touch screen in the first place. I noticed that Francis only had the screen adaptor and I was also interested in getting a case that can house both the rPI and the touch screen. After a quick search online, I found there was a companion case which I had also purchased and you can see what it looks like fully assembled below.


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