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SSD with multiple NVMe namespaces for VMware Homelab

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If space is a constraint for your VMware Homelab, you may want to consider using SSDs that can support multiple NVMe Namespaces. I first came to learn about NVMe namespaces and its benefits back in 2019 when it was first demonstrated by Micron and using it vSAN, which was also the primary use case I had in mind.

While interesting, I eventually concluded that support for multiple NVMe namespaces was only available in higher-end Enterprise SSDs, which is typically outside of the affordability range for most homelab environments. Another challenge that I found with SSDs that supported multiple NVMe namespaces, is that the interface uses a U.2 connector versus the popular M.2, which is what you would typically find in a homelab setup. This also limited the applicability of these SSDs as you would need a motherboard with a U.2 interface.

I recently had revisited the topic of NVMe namepaces as I came across the PM9A3 from Samsung, which not only supported multiple NVMe namespaces, but it was also reasonable priced ($143 for 960GB at the time of purchase). My ultimate goal was to see if I could use the 2.5" SSD in a small form factor system that only has an M.2 slot and slice up the NVMe namespace for ESXi installation + ESX-OSDATA, vSAN and even additional VMFS volumes.

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Quick Tip - Additional NVMe vendors (SK Hynix & Sabrent) for ESXi homelab

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The Samsung 980 Pro NVMe is a pretty popular SSD model that is used by many within the VMware Homelab Community. However, in recent months, there have been an alarming amount of reports from owners that their 980 Pro NVMe devices have been failing prematurely due to firmware issues.

Samsung has finally acknowledge the problem with a firmware fix and it looks like a simliar fix is also planned for the Samsung 990 Pro NVMe.

While I can not comment on the specific issues with the Samsung 980/990 Pro NVMe devices, I have had my own failures with cheaper Samsung M.2 NVMe devices where I lost my vSAN setup since I only had a single vSAN diskgroup comprised of single cache and capacity SSD for my homelab. While not ideal, this is to be expected since I had no redundancy and consumer hardware can and will fail over time. I ended upgrading both of my SSDs to a Samsung 970 Plus, which luckily is not affected by the firmware issues.

I typically recommend Samsung, Intel and Western Digital NVMe devices as they typically just work with ESXi, especially for homelab purposes where cost is one of the factors. From some of the online posts that I have read about the current Samsung 980/990 Pro issues, it seems that many have lost faith in Samsung and some have even stated that they will no longer consider Samsung for storage purchases.

This was also a simliar sentiment when I recently spoke with a fellow VMware colleague who was also impacted by the firmware issues. As part of our discussion, he had shared a couple of alternative vendors that he has is now using and recommending for his VMware Homelab setup which also includes vSAN. I thought this was good information that could also benefit folks in the community looking for other storage options.

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

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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.

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