Dell Mini-9 ESX Server
February 7, 2009
No, really. Discovered entirely unintentionally. But this can be added to the list of why the Mini9 is a great piece of kit.
This has got to be the most portable quickest implemented ESX Server ever.
Ingredients:
- Dell Mini9
- ESXi (v3) on a bootable USB stick
Instructions:
- Insert USB stick into Mini9
- Boot from USB stick
Instant ESX Server!
Clearly the 2Gb of installed memory and Intel Atom processor might severly limit the capabilities of this new ESX Server, but I’m sure someone will find a use for it… maybe to physically move live VMs from one building to another, as long as you don’t loose your Wi-fi connection 🙂
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February 7, 2009 at 11:31 am
The wifi and hard drive are detected OK? You’re sure? This’d be an awesome little demo setup.
February 9, 2009 at 12:32 am
To be honest I’m not sure. I had a bootable USB Stick with a pre-release Beta of ESXi to hand… I was just testing the Mini-9 to ensure that it *would* boot from a USB stick.
I suspect that the disk would be OK, likewise the wired network, although I suspect that Wi-Fi may not be considered a “server class” feature, so is likely to be missing.
I’m not sure how useful an ESX Server host a Mini-9 would really make; perhaps something like a Dell M4400 mobile workstation laptop would be more appropriate. Next time I have the M4400 to hand I’ll try booting it up as an ESX Server and see how it copes.
February 9, 2009 at 1:53 pm
I travel and do demos for user group meetings, and it’d make for a fun demonstration of VMotion. If I’m running iSCSI on both that and my more robust demo laptop, then I might be able to VMotion over and demonstrate how the horsepower just dies, but that the OS admin wouldn’t know his underlying hardware had changed.
April 21, 2011 at 4:16 am
[…] small test system with low power consumption and low noise level for “in office use”. Dell Mini-9 ESX Server « DrDan’s Bloghttps://danhomolka.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/dell-mini-9-esx-server/No, really. Discovered entirely […]