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ESXi 8.0 Update 2 not detecting Apple NVMe on Apple Mac Mini 2018

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While official support for running ESXi on Apple Hardware (Mac Pro and Mac Mini) has concluded with ESXi 7.x, it certainly has not discourage users from experimenting with newer ESXi releases. In fact, ESXi 8.x still runs like a champ on most x86 Apple Hardware platforms including the vintage Apple Mac Mini 7,1 (2014) and to the most recent Apple Mac Mini 8,1 (2018)!

For those with an Apple Mac Mini 8,1 (2018), the onboard Apple NVMe storage device can not be used out of the box with ESXi, without the use of the Community NVMe Driver for ESXi Fling. Surprisingly, the Community NVMe Driver for ESXI Fling is still functional even with the latest ESXi 8.x release, even though it was only created and supported during ESXi 7.x timeframe.


From the recent reports from the VMware Community, the Apple NVMe device can be detected up until ESXi 8.0 Update 1c (Build 22088125) but after upgrading to ESXi 8.0 Update 2 (22380479), it was no longer showing up.

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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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