VMware ESXi 5 whitebox supported motherboard
If you want a low power consumption whitebox motherboard to run some VMs that are not resource intensive the Asus E35M1-M PRO Zacate motherboard is an option. It has an AMD E-350 dual core 1,6 GHz processor with passive cooling, onboard graphics, max 8GB memory support, onboard LAN and 5x SATA 6 onboard. And it’s cheap.
I test the Asus E35M1-M PRO Zacate motherboard in my home lab, and it will run for VMware ESXi 5.0.0 build 469512. This motherboard can be used in a homebrew server.
Specifications Asus E35M1-M PRO Zacate motherboard:
| Form factor | uATX |
| CPU | AMD Fusion E-350 Dual-core onboard processor with passive cooler |
| Memory | Corsair XMS3 DDR3,1333-8GB KIT (2x4GB) |
| Graphics | Onboard integrated ATI Radeon HD 6310 GPU |
| Storage | 5 x SATA 6 Gb/s |
| LAN | 1 x Realtek 8111E , 1 x Gigabit LAN Controller |
| USB ports | 2 x USB ports, 12 x USB 2. ports |
| BIOS | 32 Mb flash ROM UEFI |
Here are some screenshots from the vSphere Client:
VMware ESXi 5.0.0 DCUI
Summary page
Example of the processor load with 2 x MS Windows 2008 R2 VMs
Onboard processor
Memory
Onboard disk controllers
The Realtek onboard LAN adapter.
In VMware ESX|(i) 4.x the Realtek LAN adapter is not supported.
Power consumption
The following configuration is used:
Asus E35M1-M Pro
Corsair XMS3 DDR3,1333-8GB KIT (2 x 4GB memory)
OCZ Vertex Plus - 60GB - 2.5inch
Be Quiet! Pure Power L7 300W
Hypervisor VMware ESXi 5
Here are some test I did:
Startup VMware ESXi 5 30 Watt
Idle with two Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 VMs 25 Watt
One Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 VM with 100% (using the cpubusy.vbs script) processor load 28 Watt
Two Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 VM with 100% (using the cpubusy.vbs script) processor load between 30 and 32 Watt
To power consumption is not bad if you want to run a couple of VMs 24x7.