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96GB SODIMM memory for DDR5 system with ESXi

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Back in February of this year, I had shared that non-binary 24GB and 48GB SODIMM memory was finally available, but I quickly realized that the news from Samsung was only for traditional memory modules and not the laptop SODIMM memory, which is also commonly used in small form factor systems like an Intel NUC.

Three months later, we still have no word from either Samsung or Crucial, but recently Mushkin came out of no where and released their 48GB DDR5 SODIMM modules which I had also shared the news on my blog HERE. While DDR5 adoption is slowly increasing, there are not many systems out there right now that currently supports DDR5 and you will need a DDR5 capable system to use DDR5 memory.


I recently got my hands on a new DDR5 system, which I will share more details in a future blog post, but the maximum supported memory listed for the system is still 64GB. I was curious on whether these new 48GB SODIMM would actually work with this system? If we go back to 2019, when 32GB SODIMM was first released, it was not clear whether these would work with systems that listed 32GB as their maximum supported memory?

I was the first to confirm 32GB modules worked with the popular Intel NUCs back in 2019 and that I could even use these new SODIMM modules going all the way back to an Intel 6th Gen NUC, which was released back in 2016! So while the officially tested memory limit was only 32GB, the CPU actually supported more than that!

🙏🤞I decided to take another chance and I purchased the Mushkin 96GB DDR5 SODIMM 4800mhz kit which has just arrived and I have put my theory to the test again ...

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Refresher on Nested ESXi Networking Requirements

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Using Nested Virtualization and specifically Nested ESXi, which is running ESXi inside of a VM, has become so automatic and second nature for me and many in the VMware community, that I sometimes forget we still have brand new users who are experiencing ESXi for the very first time.

Nested ESXi is an extremely powerful capability for so many different use cases from development, testing and general learning purposes. Before jumping in and deploying your Nested ESXi environment, which I highly recommend using my Nested ESXi Virtual Appliances, you need to make sure that you have proper networking setup or you will run into all sorts of strange issues. For all VMware Nested Virtualization resources, tips and tricks, you will definitely want to bookmark this page HERE.

Disclaimer: Nested Nested ESXi is not officially supported by VMware and Nested Virtualization is only supported under limited scenarios. For more details, please refer to this VMware KB 2009916.

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Benefits of VM Templates (VMTX) in vSphere Content Library

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A commonly miss-understood capability of the vSphere Content Library is managing and distributing Virtual Machine Templates (VMTX), which was introduced in vSphere 6.7 Update 2.

When vSphere Content Library was first released in vSphere 5.0, content was distributed by using a pull-based replication where the subscriber vCenter Server would setup initiate the content subscription to the publisher vCenter Server and then content would then be downloaded to the subscriber vCenter Server as shown in the diagram below.


This initial architecture of vSphere Content Library made it extremely easy for any vCenter Server, regardless of their vCenter Single Sign-On domain, to create a subscription and download content (ISO, OVF/OVA and other files) from the vSphere Content Library of the publisher vCenter Server.

The creation of the vSphere Content Library subscription was managed completely by the individual subscribing vCenter Server as long as it knew the subscription URL and any credentials that may have been configured and of course connectivity to the publisher vCenter Server. While this made it easy for anyone to subscribe content from a vSphere Content Library, it also meant for larger organizations with many vCenter Server(s), an additional task was required to configure each subscribing vCenter Server.

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