November 30th, 2008 
Kiwi Si 
Well here it is after a week or so (with the flu getting in the way) -my running VMware ESX and ESXi 3.5 on an HP Proliant ML115 G5 Quad core article.
At the time of writing this article an ML115 G5 Quad Core is going for £179.97+VAT.
So as always the server turns up in a standard issue nondescript HP box with sufficient packaging. The box contains an HP standard PS2 keyboard and mouse, a power cord, a CD containing documentation and the Easy Setup utility and general health and safety and warranty paper documentation bumph that no-one actually ever reads.
Unsurprisingly the actual server itself is in a case identical to that of the ML115 G5 Dual Core model with 2 front side USB ports, a SATA DVD+R Dual Layer (with LightScribe) DVD recorder and a further 4 USB ports on the rear. A serial, VGA and PS2 keyboard and mouse ports can also be found on the rear of the server.
I’m not going into great detail on the inside of the case as it doesn’t really differ from the ML115 G5 dual core or in fact the ML110 G5 models either (though there are subtle differences with these Intel based models). There is sufficient space to add extra drives (4 in total – with the supplied power connectors) and memory. The server comes with 512MB of memory occupying 1 of the 4 PC2-6400 memory slots. The server can take up to 8GB of memory in total.
One of the most exciting parts of the inside of the server is the internal USB port! Big deal some of you may say but this little gem is how were going to run VMware ESX on this great little machine.
For the purposes of this article I am going to keep everything bulk standard apart from the memory. I have removed the 512MB of memory as for VMware ESX to install over 1GB of memory needs to be installed. I have a 2 x 2GB Corsair XMS2 PC2-6400 memory kit that I will be using for this installation. I have used this particular memory kit for my ML110 G4, G5’s and ML115 G5’s (Dual Core) and have been happy with it’s compatibility and performance. If you try to install VMware ESX with the 512MB of memory you will get the following colourful error screen:
The hard disk that comes as standard with this ML115 G5 is a Seagate Barracuda 250GB 7200rpm and is sufficient for a basic standalone test lab.
Here is a screen shot of the BIOS screen which give details on the ML115 G5 Quad Core processor. Nothing too detailed here but may be of interest for the anoraks amongst you. 
One of the first things you’ll be wanting to do before going to install VMware ESX is to enable the ‘Secure Virtual Machine Mode’ in the BIOS. It is set to ‘Disabled’ by default and can be found in the ‘Advanced’ CPU configuration settings of the BIOS. ‘Secure Virtual Machine Mode’ is more commonly known as AMD-V and is AMD’s virtualization extension set for their modern processors.
So how noisy is the HP ML115 G5 (Quad Core) when running?
Check out my blog posting here for a video of the ML115 when first started up and then running.
VMware ESXi 3.5 U3 Install
Ideally, in a perfect world, it’d be nice if when installing VMware ESXi 3.5 U3 that you’d just insert the install CD and it’d detect all the hardware first off. Although I found this to be the case with most of my ML110 G4, G5 and ML115 G5 Dual Core servers this wasn’t to be with this new Quad Core offering of the ML115 G5.
When starting to go through the ESXi U3 install process all goes well until you hit the stage where ESXi looks for a hard disk on which to install itself. At this point it fails to find a compatible disk controller and subsequently an available hard disk and gives the following error message.
To get around this potential show-stopper you can use a USB pen drive and the internal (or technically you could use one of the external USB ports) USB port of the server to boot and run a copy of VMware ESXi 3.5 from. Although at first for those of you that have not done this before it may sound a daunting task in reality it is very straight forward to do and works a treat!
So rather than booting ESXi from the internal disk controller and hard disk of the ML115 G5 we’ll boot ESXi from a USB key instead. With the price of USB pen drives being so cheap these days this is a low cost work around and offers the advantages of slightly quicker ESXi load times and also providing all of the hard disk as pure vmfs3 VM and ISO storage (this is possible as once ESXi U3 has loaded the onboard disk controller is detected and the attached SATA disk presented).
I bought a 1GB Verbatim USB2 pen drive for £5 and used this to install ESXi onto. Any USB2 pen drive 1GB or over will do. The size of the image (VMware-VMvisor-big-.5.0_Update_3-123629.i386.dd) that you’ll be writing to the USB pen drive is 750MB. Here is a link to another article I have written giving step by step instructions on how to create a bootable ESX USB pen drive.
Once VMware ESXi 3.5 is installed on the USB pen drive it just needs inserting into the internal USB port of the ML115 G5.
We are now ready to boot the new ESXi server. To give you an idea of how long it takes to fully boot into ESXi here is a breakdown of timings:
0 – 29 seconds: high fan speed (very noisy) and loading of BIOS until the hardware based environment monitor starts.
30 – 49 seconds: BIOS finishes loading.
50 – 125 seconds: VMware ESXi 3.5 loads from the USB pen drive with a static IP address.
Once ESXi has loaded give it a fixed/static IP address and connect to it using a web browser and download and install the Virtual Infrastructure Client (VIC) onto your PC/Server.
Although ESXi didn’t identify the onboard disk controller as being compatible during the installation process it is identified and the hard disk allocated once ESXi has fully loaded. As a result the SATA disk in the ML115 G5 shows up as a useable vmfs disk with the VIC. On this disk we can upload any ISO’s and VM’s, etc.
So at this stage we have everything we need to start using VMware ESXi on the ML115 G5. As an example I installed Windows Server 2008 Enterprise x86 on the server after uploading the source ISO image up to the local disk in the server.
Processor details within ESXi 3.5 U3:
The onboard MCP55 SATA disk controller is fully operational once ESXi is up and running:
Also, I can confirm that the onboard network card appears and is fully operational ‘out of the box’.
The new ESXi Health Status sensor detection also works and displays the expected useful environmental information.
I will continue this article over the next week and will cover the following areas:
- Using the onboard RAID to provide a mirrored pair of disks formatted in vmfs – is this possible?
- Power Consumption – how much power does the server consume (eg: during startup, idle and an average load).
So bookmark this page and check back again real soon.
Related posts:
- Installing and Running VMware vSphere (ESX 4.0) on your lab HP Proliant ML110 or ML115. With the release of VMware’s vSphere and ESX 4.0...
- Can you use the HP Proliant ML115 G5 Onboard RAID with VMware ESXi 3.5 Update 4 (U4)? Can you use the HP Proliant ML115 G5 onboard...
- Running VMware ESXi on a home lab HP Proliant ML115 G5 with a Dell PERC 5i Array Controller. TechHead would like to welcome James Pearce as a...
- VMware ESXi 4.0 Update 1 (U1) Fixes SATA CD/DVD-ROM Issue With HP Proliant ML115 G5 Thanks to James Pearce for pointing out this VMware...
Posted in 
My name is Simon Seagrave and I am a London (UK) based Technical Architect. 
Loading ...
Si
Glad to hear your better.
Can you also provide a screenshot to show what is picked up in the hardware config screen e.g. fans, power etc.
Thanks
Martin
[Reply]
Hi Martin,
Feeling much better thanks
I have included a screen shot of the Health Status screen as requested. Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Si
[Reply]
Hello,
did you try to set it up having a RAID 1 configured?
Niels
[Reply]
Hi Si,
Great Blog. Tx.
My ML115 G5 arrives tomorrow and I thanks to your blog I am more confident of getting esxi 3.5 u3 installed all be it using a USB pen drive. Any reason why it won’t install from CD/DVD to the disk (and onboard controller) that comes with the server??? I will try with an HP e200 controller and a couple of disks attached and see how I go.
Tx again,
Ant.
[Reply]
Hi Ant
I had the opposite problem, couldn’t boot from usbdrive so installed from cdrom instead to local disk. Must be the usb drives I am using though i have gone through 4 of them already.
Didnt need to add e200 controller in the end, been stable now for almost 2 weeks.
I had to add ISCSI to the
/usr/lib/vmware/installer/Core/TargetFilter.py
see this link if you need it
http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/ESXi_install_to_IDE_drive/ESXi_install_to_IDE_drive.php
Just ordered more RAM and looking also to add another drive, crucial memory do a cracking deal at the moment if you’re interested.
Erwin
[Reply]
Magic, Tx Erwin.
Will follow the vm-help instructions link you suggest and c how I go.
Standby.
Ant.
[Reply]
Hi Erwin,
Thanks for the heads-up on the work around.
Good to hear this works – I saw a similar article recently that was referenced by someone in one of the other posts for one of the older models of ML110/ML115’s but hadn’t had time to reading it and testing it. I think they’d had a few problems with prolonged disk stability.
I’ll give it a go from the link you provided this weekend and will add my findings to the blog posting (with a credit to yourself of course
).
Just checked out that Crucial deal – that is good value. I haven’t used the Crucial memory in the ML110/ML115’s before though have in other servers and always found it good amd reliable. Also check out this deal from OverClockers: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-136-CS
Ant: Let us know how you get on.
All the best to you both,
Simon
[Reply]
Hi Niels,
I’ll try and give it a go this weekend. It’s currently on my to-do list.
I’ll let you know.
Cheers,
Simon
[Reply]
[...] I mentioned that my laptop HD went pop last Monday in my praise of the Ubuntu live CD. I have decided to get a external drive to backup onto (it took six days and much faf to get my data back) and also run my VMs from. So I had a word with my colleague Simon TechHead who is our resident hardware guru for spec’ing this sort of hardware (He’s also a bit tasty with all things HP) * PLUG* He has some excellent advice for building low cost VM lab environments [...]
Hurrah! Finally got my ML115 and iLO card this week – picked up an E200 but the required cables for that are living up to the reputation of being hard to source…. 3 places have taken online orders for that item but had to refund me now
I’d already prepped a USB key in anticipation of the delivery and the new box booted straight into ESXi after installing the additional Crucial RAM (I’ve always bought Crucial memory previously)
[Reply]
ML115G5 booted up just fine with the USB key. Had to reinstall ESXi when trying to add an iSCSI target however – guess I screwed up the networking and the management port somehow as the ESXi box wouldn’t reboot.
For those still thinking about purchasing I believe some retailers now have this ML115 model at @ £138 + VAT!
[Reply]
How quiet is the ML115G5? Which is best description?
- noisy – Keep it in the server room?
- OK in the office, but noticeable
- An average desktop
- Could keep it in the living room
- Could leave it running in the bedroom at night?
[Reply]
Hi David,
I would have to say that running a single server on its own would be the equivalent to an average desktop PC (without a dedicated graphics card). It is surprisingly quite and you could leave it running in a bedroom at night – if you don’t mind a very distant whirr.
It is however exceptionally noisy for about 30 seconds when first starting up as all the fans are on full until the hardware based environmental monitoring kicks in.
I plan to video a start-up and then standard running of the ML115 G5 to give others an idea of noise – watch this space.
Hope this helps.
Si
[Reply]
good article
[Reply]
I’d like to know about the Power Consumption you said you were going to tell us about, but I am most probably going to order a ML115 very soon in any case.
ServersDirect are now selling them for £137.97+VAT with three years on-site and a rebate on the remote management card for it. Crazy!
[Reply]
Hi there,
Apologies for the delay is replying to your question around the power consumption – things leading up to Christmas have just been mad at work..
I took some basic power readings from the ML115 Quad Core this evening and this is what was recorded:
During the start-up, ie: all the fans going whilst the hardware based environmental monitoring kicks in the server draws between 136.3 – 140.3 Watts. Once the server is up and running ESXi from the USB drive – with no VM’s running at this stage it draws between 88.7 – 99.4 W. As for Amp age it is drawing between .47 – .62 Amps. This admittedly isn’t at full or even 50% load though may be a good starting point.
I will hopefully have a little more spare time in the evenings (at least I hope) come the New Year so will have time to take more detailed readings.
Cheers,
Si
[Reply]
Any odds of booting a VM from a USB Key inside ESXi? I am trying to figure out how to boot Unraid from inside ESX, and then present it with several large VM drives, which I would do a software raid on if possible in ESXi? If not, then I would like o setup several RAid 0 hardware disks, and present those to Unraid via ESXi.
[Reply]
Si.
Wanted to let you know that I bought an ML115 G5 and have performed the USB install trick. I’ve actually taken out the 250GB disk and put it in my storage server, so will serve up VMs over NFS or iSCSI.
Thanks for a great blog!
[Reply]
I purchased two ML 115 G5’s. I will use one as a storage server(iSCSI) and the other for running VM’s. Did anybody get theirs from serversdirect but haven’t received the management cards? Does anybody know if HP will refund the cost of the management cards if I can get them in the new year, even though they were ordered at the same time as the servers?
Can anybody recommend a raid controller which will work with the ML115 and be compatible with ESXi? I’ve been looking but can’t find pci-e controllers less than £150 have raid 5 and 4 ports.
Great blog.
[Reply]
Hi Jabbar,
I considered exactly the same thing as you and after lengthy research all the arguments seemed to be pointing to the same thing – buying a raid controller card new for less than a 3 figure sum just isn’t worth it – cheaper ones are software reliant rather than true hardware based and so you have the limited expensive ESXi compatibility list.
I kept an eye on eBay and picked up an E200 for just under £100 with p&p.
That said, the ML115 has a PCI 32bit slot as well iirc – plenty of the PCI Adaptec controllers noted on the Whiteboxes list here http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3.5/Whiteboxes_SATA_Controllers_for_ESX_3.5_3i.htm as working with ESXi are regularly listed on eBay and elsewhere if you’re not fixed on PCI-e.
(Can’t confirm their compatibility from personal use however.)
[Reply]
Hello hyundai,
Thanks for your advice. I’ve looked on ebay and can’t find any. I’ll have to keep looking out for them. Does anybody know of any alternative pcie raid sata controllers, which are esx 3i compatible and around £150 mark or less?
Has anybody used openfiler in anger?
[Reply]
Hi all,
Like Hunyadi I went with an HP e200 PCIe RAID controller and use it with a RAID 1 disk configuration running ESXi – both with great success.
I now currently use this controller in my ML110 G4 OpenFiler server and from here run all my VM’s (ie: MS Exchange 2007, MS SQL 2003, 3 x W2K3 general servers). Only the E2K7 server has live users on it (6) – as it isn’t really a live production environment though am helping out a friend whilst he arranges more permanent Exchange hosting. This is being run under a RAID 1 (pair of Samsung 300GB drives) configuration though upon getting back home early in the New Year period I will be reconfiguring it in a RAID 1 + 0 (4 x 300GB drives) config to try and eek out a little extra bit of performance from it.
Hope this helps.
Si
[Reply]
Great article – will be going through it later on a new server being delivered today.
[Reply]
Hi, excuse me for my English.
I’m trying to install VMware ESX server 3.5 U3 onto an HP ML115 G5 server but the SATA drives do not get detected properly when installed.
I have followed many tutorial to resolve the problem but even when the disks are detected ESX gives many problems (error disc read-only and other).
Please where can I find a tutorial for use VMware ESX server 3.5 U3 onto an HP ML115 G5 ?
Thank you very much
Enrico
[Reply]
Phil B Reply:
December 1st, 2009 at 11:44 am
Hi Enrico,
Did you ever get a fix for your ESX 3.5 install? I’m trying to install ESX 3.5 U4 onto an ML115 G5 and having the same issues you had.
Regards,
Phil.
[Reply]
Hi Enrico,
Thanks for calling past the blog.
Can you elaborate on what disk and ESX configuration in the ML115 you are running? eg: Are you booting from a USB key or have you performed the hack to boot ESXi from local disk connected to the onboard controller. Are you running the VM’s from a secondary disk in the ML115.
Cheers,
Simon
[Reply]
When I boot ESXi from USB key the local hard disks connected to the onboard controller works 100% but the transfer rate with SFTP and transfer rate between two hard disk connected to the onboard controller is very low.
When I boot ESX from local disk connected to the onboard controller, the transfer rate in SFTP with the service console is fast but ESX not recognizes the onboard controller. After I performed the hack editing “sata_nv.xm” ESX recognizes the onboard controller but I can run the VM’s only from a secondary disk. If I choose to create the datastore in free space of the first disk then ESX freezes or gives me error of read-only file system.
Thank you very much
Enrico
[Reply]
Slow disk performance. If I copy from one VM to another the copy speed is only 10-17 MB/s. The VM’s are connected via the vSwitch at 1Gbps an should becopying much faster.
Anybody an excplanation ?
Luc
[Reply]
Hi Luc,
What are you copying from/to? Are you using shared storage (eg: fibre connected, iSCSI, NAS) and I assume you are using the DataStore Browser to copy these VM’s?
Cheers,
Si
[Reply]
If you’d like to make a USB Bootable ESXi on Apple Mac OSX then this guide will serve you well.
http://blog.scottlowe.org/2009/01/08/creating-a-bootable-esxi-usb-stick-on-mac-os-x/
[Reply]
Hi,
Thanks for the great article..! I got this working via the USB method but if I reboot the server the install is lost and I have to reinstall ESXi all over again…! Is this normal..? I also tried installing using ISO image(via ilo card) and editing the Targetfiler.py.. it says installed succesfully but when the server restarts it says boot error..!! I have the Nvidia card.. 3 x 250gb SATA drives (setup as Raid5).. Any ideas..? Thanks in advance for any help…
[Reply]
Hi Peter,
Thanks for the link – this is something I will definitely be giving a go. Just need to dust off the ole MacBook.
Cheers,
Si
[Reply]
Are these instructions going to work for the ESXi free download also? I notice you guys are talking about the ESXi 3.5 version all the time.
Regards,
Atle
[Reply]
UPDATE:…..
ok so I figured out that if I want to use the internal (Nvidia) controller WITH RAID capability then I have to use the internal USB method (and leave it connected).. if not then I can disabled RAID in the BIOS and use the ‘hack’ method and install via CD onto local drive.. I have now set this up and am using OPenfiler on the ESXi server for my free SAN solution..! I have also installed win2008 and all seems to be fine so far… will keep you updated..!
[Reply]
Thanks for the update. Let us know how you get on.
Cheers,
Si
[Reply]
I have a HP ML 115 Dual Core – I want to utilise the onboard SATA controller to be able to boot and not lose configuration everytime I reboot by using a USB key.
How can I do this, what is the hack method, I am aware I may need to edit ESXi files to do this, any help greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Dan
[Reply]
Hi Dan t,
Have you tried leaving the USB pluged in to internal USB connection and rebooted to see if the configuration is still saved..? The CD hack method is here http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/ESXi_install_to_IDE_drive/ESXi_install_to_IDE_drive.php not sure if it will work if you have RAID enabled but try it out..!
[Reply]
Problem is I have all SATA drives in the proliant at the moment, will try USB internally, otherwise I will fish out a IDE drive to boot from.
Will keep you posted.
Dan
[Reply]
Dan t,
That config is for SATA drives ! even though it shows as IDE … it will make sense once you install it..!
[Reply]
Thanks for the guide, im new to vmware esxi and just bought one of these servers to mess about with it, was handy seeing how you got it up and running.
[Reply]
Picked up one of these from ebuyer for £199 after reading your article. It comes with a standard SATA DVD ROM and a 160Gb SATA drive (Seagate I think)
Followed your guide on getting ESXi installed on the ML115 G5 via USB, and eventually got it up and working (although still have a problem with losing the Seagate/datastore, requring a reboot to bring it back online – I have seen this mentioned as a common problem with ESX, not so much with ESXi).
Initially I had downloaded the HP version of ESXi 3.5 U3 and I was getting Exception 14 panics about 50 secs after starting. So I then downloaded the plain vanilla ESX 3.5i U3 and recreated the USB stick. I also reset the BIOS at the same time, and only changed the “Secure Virtual Machine Mode” in the BIOS.
One of these did the trick, but I suspect the BIOS, as the VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0_Update_3-123629.i386.dd file appears identical in both the HP and vanilla ISOs.
So I just need to find out why the seagate drops out and I’ll be a happy camper
[Reply]
[...] http://www.techhead.co.uk/installing-vmware-esx-and-esxi-35-on-an-hp-proliant-ml115-g5-quad-core [...]
Hi Simon,
Great article managed to get my out of the box HP ML115 G5 up and running with the USB boot option.
All has been going well now have 5 live VM’s running with 4GB (Crucial) memory upgrade soon to be 8GB and the 1GB that came for free with the unit with 2TB of storage.
I have a question re the sensors on the config page. When I first booted up with just the 1GB of HP memory I saw the exact same list of sensors as in your article above. However after adding the extra 4GB of Crucial memory the sensors list seems to have shrunk! See picture.
Do you have any ideas why this may have happened?
Cheers
Dave
[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
April 30th, 2009 at 8:22 am
Hi Dave,
Sorry about the delay in getting back to you but have had my ML115 G5 set up for other things until last night. I have tried both 1GB (1 x 1GB HP standard ECC and 1 x 1GB Corsair non-ECC DDR2-800MHz XMS2) memory along with 4GB (2 x 2GB Corsair non-ECC DDR2-800MHz XMS2) memory configurations but can’t seem to replicate the problem. Unfortunately I don’t have an Crucial ECC memory that I could test.
Is anyone else out there running 4GB Corsair ECC memory in their ML115 G5 under ESXi U4 – if so what is your sensor configuration looking like? Thanks.
Here are the screen shots from the various memory configurations (Note: the 1GB HP and 1GB Corsair non-ECC produced the same result so I am only displaying one screen shot for both).
1GB Memory – ML115 G5 (ESXi 3.5 U4):
4GB Memory – ML115 G5 (ESXi 3.5 U4):
Cheers,
Si
[Reply]
Great write-up!!
I have a Quad Core ML115 hopefully arriving tomorrow. I assume that the U4 version of ESXi will also work following the same steps?
Thanks,
Pete
[Reply]
triman Reply:
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Hi Pete
U4 works no problem at all if you follow the instructions. The RAID controller is detected but do not set any raid options as they do not work. So best to just leave them as independent SATA disks.
If the USB disk creation instructions do not work then follow the other guide at
http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2008/07/29/esxi-35-update-2-on-a-usb-memory-key/
The only issue you may come across is a USB stick that ESXi does not like.
I used the following with sucess from ebuyer.com
Kingston 2GB USB 2.0 Datatraveler Mini Flash Drive – Black
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/159032
Hope you have the same success as I did.
Cheers
Dave
[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
April 24th, 2009 at 6:14 am
Hi Dave,
Thanks for leaving the feedback – this will be most useful for others.
All the best,
Simon
[Reply]
triman Reply:
April 24th, 2009 at 6:55 am
Hi Simon,
Do you have any thoughts on the issue I am having with the missing sensors I posted on the 23rd?
Cheers
Dave
Kiwi Si Reply:
April 24th, 2009 at 7:45 am
Hi Dave,
TBH it is not something that I have seen before. I was using my ML115 G5 (Quad) for my main Windows 7 machine though have now moved this onto another generic PC so that I can test. Can you confirm what release of ESX(i) you are using?
Thanks,
Si
[...] I For the steps on how to install ESX-i 3.5, please visit http://www.techhead.co.uk/installing-vmware-esx-and-esxi-35-on-an-hp-proliant-ml115-g5-quad-core [...]
Hi Simon,
I am using Esxi U4 3.5.0, 153875
Cheers
Dave
[Reply]
Up and running – all seems very straight forward! The USB trick worked on two different USB sticks ive tried (both different types of Sandisk 4gb sticks).
I’ve got 4 gigs of ram in and will order 4 more.
I don’t have a windows machine so am having to run the management console on a VM and remote desktop into it which is a bit of a pain, but it’s tollerable now i’ve figured out how to set VMs to power up/down with the host.
In an emgergency I can reboot my mac into Windows and use the management client from there.
One thing I would say is that VMs seems to be rather slow when doing i/o intensive operations (e.g., windows update / installing software etc). I assume this is just down to contention for a single sata disk (although even when all of the VMs except one are idle these types of task are a bit slower than i’d expect).
I might need to have a play with allocation of resources a bit to see if I can improve things.
I currently am using the 250gig sata drive I got with the server and a 500g drive. I added both of these to the same datastore, but have just temporarilly moved the VMs onto a third drive so I can have one data store on each drive and split the VMs across the data stores to see if this helps speed things up a little.
Pete.
[Reply]
Putting each VM on it’s own physical drive has dramatically increased speed.
I have a question though – I have a 1.5tb SATA drive I want to use as a data store (for my media etc) but not to hold an OS.
How do i present this as a second disk to one of the VMs (e.g., so it appears as a seperate hard disk). I realise I can’t use passthrough on a sata device like i could a SCSI device, but can I still create a 1.5tb VMFS filesystem on the drive then present this to a guest OS as storage? I cannot figure out how to do this.
Another 4 gigs of memory arrived yesterday (memory seems to cheap now it’d be rude to not run with 8gb).
Thanks.
[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
April 29th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Hi Peter,
TBH I haven’t presented a 1.5TB SATA disk through before on a ML110/115 (1TB is the largest capacity disk I own) though in theory you should be to physically add it into your server. Assuming your disk controller can see the disk, present it through to ESX(i) (and ESX(i) can see it ok) then create a vmfs data store on it. Then from within the ‘Edit’ section of the VM in the VC or vCenter create a disk of the appropriate size and attach it to that VM. Job done
I hope I read you question correctly.
Cheers,
Si
[Reply]
PeterNem Reply:
April 29th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
You read my question perfectly…
The EDIT > Add Virtual Disk step was the one I was missing… I was looking for this from within the Hardware > Storage configuration page.
Thanks
In other news… I just purchased a PERC 5i RAID card from ebay… I’m planning to use 3*250 or 3*500 (not yet decided on capacity, have one of each so either way just need to buy two more) drives in RAID 5 to hold my VM OS drives, and then use the 1.5tb as described above for storage of media.
[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
April 30th, 2009 at 7:05 am
Hi Peter,
I’ve been thinking about getting a PERC 5i RAID card for a while now. Let me know how you get on with yours and wether you think the perforance is any good.
Thanks,
Simon
PeterNem,
I’m sure someone will be along with an easier and better solution, but what about installing OpenFiler as a VM on the 1.5Tb, and “sharing” it out via iSCSI, or if you want it to be shared out amongst all your VMs at the same time, use one of the NAS protocols.
I downloaded OpenFiler as a ready-to-go VM. That saidm I was more interested in learning about iSCSI than having shared storage, but it should do the trick.
As a disclaimer, I’m now running VMWare Workstation rather than ESXi, but the principal should be the same.
Mike
[Reply]
Hi, I have ESX Server 3i, with a P400 Smart Array controller, I can see the controller under storage Adapters but none of my HDDs. Any ideas?
Have everything running fine on a non VM Vista Install, should I install something else?
[Reply]
Hi Amar,
Silly questions but are you checking that the disks are there under the ‘Storage Adapters’ and not the ‘Storage’ section of the configuration section?
The reason I ask is that I’ve seen people go looking for the disks in the ‘Storage’ section before – easy enough to overlook.
Did you mean that you have the VMware Infrastructure Client installed on a non-VM install? If so, this is just fine and you don’t have to install anything else to present the disks through as a DataStore.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Si
[Reply]
Hi Si,
Thanks for the reply, none of my 4 HDDs are seen under Storage Adapters but I can see the on board Sata HDD. Targets under the P400 show 0.
Sorry if that was confusing some what, meant to say I got a spare HDD and but Windows 2008 and could see my array fine.
Thanks,
Amar
[Reply]
Amar Reply:
May 9th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
Just to update got my Perc controller working which was not before just like the P400
Seems the recently released firmware kicked it up the arse, time to play, Game on!
[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
May 15th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
Hi Amar,
Thanks for letting us know. How do you find the performance of the Perc controller?
Cheers,
Si
[Reply]
Any recommend an additional NIC card for the ML115?
Thanks
[Reply]
Erwin Rivera Reply:
May 2nd, 2009 at 9:55 pm
I got some cheap Intel Pro 1000 GT Dual and Quad ports from ebay for the ML115 G5
[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
May 2nd, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Hi there,
I use a mixture of two PCie Gb NICs – both dual port:
Intel PRO/1000 PT
HP NC380T
I find both work really well in my ML110’s and ML115’s and are also on the VMware ESX(i) compatibility list. I picked them up off of Ebay.
Cheers,
Simon
[Reply]
LDW
I used a compaq NC7131 Gigabit card with no problems at all.
Dave
[Reply]
Sounds like the ML115 quad is a bit different internally from the older models. Can the ML115 G5 delivered with dual e2160 or 4450 be upgraded to the quad processor, perhaps with a BIOS refresh?
thx, brikah
[Reply]
brikah Reply:
May 5th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Oops, that post is in error, it’s opteron 1214 on the older ml115 G5. Anyone upgraded it to an opteron 1352 or 1354?
thx, brikah
[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
May 15th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Hi Brikah,
I haven’t heard of anyone attempting this before. Personally I wouldn’t recommend it – though if you do please let me know how you get on.
Cheers,
Si
[Reply]
Hi
How do you install in ML115 G5 Vmware ESX 3.5 in a pen like you do with ESXi ?You dont have the dd file inside the ESX iso file…
Thanks in advance
Serpins
[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
May 15th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Hi Serpins,
Unfortunately you the required ‘dd’ file is only available with the VMware ESXi install so it using ESX you’ll have to look at installing it on a hard disk.
Cheers,
Si
[Reply]
A great article – ML115G5 now running ESXi from an internal Corsair 8GB drive leaving the four disk bays free.
I use an XP-Pro VM to run photoshop, which I migrated from Hyper-V using the free vCentre Converter (which worked perfectly).
Hyper-V guest disk performance was awful on the ML110G4 – ~2MB/s – whilst under ESXi the same guest is showing over 40MB/s.
Although that’s overshadowed by the free DR-DOS games VM that can be downloaded which includes the Grand Prix game I used to waste my days playing as a kid!
Thanks again!
[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
May 15th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Hi Jimbo,
Thanks for the feedback – much appreciated.
Glad things are running for you smoothly now.
Next stop ESXi 4.0 when it comes out soon..
All the best,
Si
[Reply]
Great article and something I have just implemented.
I am however experiencing a problem. After several days, the guest machines (2 loaded so far) freeze. When using the console I get a “Virtual machine config file does not exist” error.
Looking at the logs (via console) I see lots of “Linblock: 1926: I/O) error messages.
Also I cannot use the converter tool to load up a VMware Server image to the Esxi install. Again getting I/O errors.
Has anyone any ideas what this could be and how to resolve it?
thanks for any help..
[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
May 15th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Hi Mark,
Apologies for not replying to you sooner. Things have been rather chaotic the last few weeks.
Are you still getting the Linblock I/O errors? If so are you able to confirm the configuration on your ML115 G5? ie: memory, BIOS revision, any extra disks or controllers added, do you have ESXi installed on a USB pen drive.
Cheers,
Si
[Reply]
MarkR Reply:
May 17th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Hi Simon,
No need to apologise!
Specs
ML115 G5 Opteron 1352 (2.1 GHz, 2MB) Quad Core, Non Hot Plug SATA 160GB
Replaced suppliedd RAM with Corsair memory 4GB TwinX XMS2 6400 DDR2 Kit
Unsure of Bios info, as machine is at office
Followed your how to, to the letter and yes running off USB pen drive
It is losing the datastore, which is obviously the reason for that error regarding machine config.
thanks for your assistance, it is much appreciated
[Reply]
pearce_jj Reply:
June 3rd, 2009 at 6:33 pm
do you have any seagate drives in it? I found that a perfectly functional hp branded seagate enterprise disk get dropping off from the ml115g5 under ESXi. WD’s RE2s work fine though.
Kiwi Si Reply:
June 9th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
That sounds like a strange problem and not one I’ve seen or heard of before. I’ve been running Seagate and Maxtor SATA disks in my ML115 G5 without any issue. Thanks for letting us know – as others may be experiencing something similar. I wonder if it was from a faulty batch of disks?
MarkR Reply:
June 19th, 2009 at 8:01 am
UPDATE
Well thanks to pearce_ii my ESXi has been up with 2 VM’s running for a solid week now. I replaced the Seagate drive with a WD and all appears to be well!
So thanks for that thought.
Markr,
had same problems. seemed to only occur when uploading images via the convertor tool – see earlier post. gave up in the end and moved to a workstation 6 under win2008 x64.
now working on a wol issue, but not a show stopper.
regards
mike
[Reply]
[...] neat little VM test machine. You can also boot ESXi from a USB memory stick on an internal port – Techhead. Ours has been running a treat like [...]
Thanks Mike, I am now thinking about going back to running Win 2003, then either Workstation or Server version instead.
Would rather not, but even for a test lab, I do need to have machines that stay up for longer then 2 days..
Am trying to get some different Ram to see if that is the cause of the problems, as I do not know what else it could be.
[Reply]
Hello,
With the release of ESXi 4.0 how will I perform a upgrade using the usb key that has Esxi 3.5 U3?
Thanks
[Reply]
msuk Reply:
June 10th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
Can anyone help me I am a little confused in how to perform an upgrade without loosing installed VM’s and license information.
Thanks
[Reply]
Recently experiencing host lockup which requires reboot of HP ML115 G5 running Esxi on most recent build. Unable to gain access to console via F2 customize system or even F12 reboot, have to do a hard reset via power button.
Sylogs show an error message around the time everything fails:-
2009-06-10 16:09:59 Local6.Warning 10.x.x.x vmkernel: 4:18:15:32.165 cpu0:2815)WARNING: MCE: 196: Machine Check Error: Bank 4, Status d47a4000a4080813
2009-06-10 16:09:59 Local6.Warning 10.x.x.x vmkernel: 4:18:15:32.165 cpu0:2815)WARNING: MCE: 230: Machine Check Error: Bank 4, Addr 00000001cd64f4c0, Valid TRUE
2009-06-10 16:10:14 Local6.Warning 10.x.x.x vmkernel: 4:18:15:47.164 cpu0:2815)WARNING: MCE: 196: Machine Check Error: Bank 4, Status 9432400052080813
2009-06-10 16:10:14 Local6.Warning 10.x.x.x vmkernel: 4:18:15:47.165 cpu0:2815)WARNING: MCE: 230: Machine Check Error: Bank 4, Addr 00000001c9ec6020, Valid TRUE
Does anybody have any ideas what these errors codes maybe??
Any help greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Dave
[Reply]
pearce_jj Reply:
June 10th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Looks like bad ram (“Bank 4″) – download and use Microsoft’s Memory Diagnostic (also available on the Win7 boot CD, select recovery).
[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
June 11th, 2009 at 7:25 am
I agree with Pearce – looks like bad memory.
[Reply]
Thanks for the helpful advice Si & pearce_jj.
Will download some memory testing boot cd apps to stress the 4 x 2GB sticks.
Dave
[Reply]
Have a look in the BIOS. If it’s ECC memory in there you should be seeing confirmation in the event log.
[Reply]
I am trying this but am having issues getting my ml 115 to boot from the usb key, I have tried two now, incase one was broken.
It sees the HiSpeed USB device in the post screen, but doesnt boot from it, I have removed all other boot devices in the bios and just have USB: in boot devices and harddrives.
[Reply]
Nunzio Reply:
June 30th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
** Solved **
I used winimage to put the .dd image on the drive.
[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
July 1st, 2009 at 9:28 am
Hi Nunzio,
Thanks for the update and am glad it is now working for you. A corrupt or non-working image on the USB pen drive is unfortuantely a common cause.
Cheers,
Si
[Reply]
Nunzio Reply:
July 1st, 2009 at 11:05 am
Do we know if this method works with the newer ESXi v4?
Apparently yes, not tried it myself yet though. 3.5 to 4 upgrade is possible, see http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/it-consultant/upgrade-esxi-35-to-esxi-40-without-vcenter/
For those interested in hardware RAID, I’ve done a quick guide at http://pearcejj.spaces.live.com/blog/cns&#…9!184.entry
Si – hope not to offend, please delete this post if inappropriate in any way!
[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
July 1st, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Hi James,
Thanks for asking – much appreciated. Though it is totally ok – your article is complementary to the one I published and made for interesting reading.
I have a similar article currently drafted up that is looking at the performance (with benchmarking) that can be obtained using the onboard RAID including the HP e200 controller. When I publish it (hopefully sometime soon) I will reference your ML115/Dell Perc article.
Nice one..
Cheers,
Si
[Reply]
pearce_jj Reply:
July 1st, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Thanks Si, will look forward to seeing the e200 numbers
. Here’s a better URL to the PERC article in the mean time, http://tinyurl.com/nsmh7d
[Reply]
Just been trying with ESXi v4. As long as you can find the .dd image as the path is different to v3.5.
I used winimage again to copy the .dd file onto my 1gb usbkey, and tested.
Everything is fine.
[Reply]
does anyone know whether it is possible to use 4×1.5tb or 4×2tb hd`s in the HP ML115 ?
I`m aware that HP `officially` only support 750gb drives but I know for sure that it is possible with 1tb, just not sure if 1.5-2tb will work.
[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
July 4th, 2009 at 7:31 am
Hi,
I’ve only ever gone as far as 1TB drives due to my budget. I know there have been a few questions around the maximum capacity drives it’ll take though unfortuantely nothing definite as yet.
Are you going to be running these off of a separate array controller (eg: HP e200 or Dell Perc) or the onboard SATA controller?
Let us know if you decide to go for it and if it worked.
Cheers,
Si
[Reply]
I`ll probably stick with 1TB drives then, looks like I`m going to have to use a separate array controller as I want Raid 5 / VMware.
[Reply]
I’m using a 1.5tb drive on the on board controller with no issues at all, it’s been on and working fine for a couple of months now. Drive is a seagate.
This big cheap storage compliments my 4*50gb Raid 5 (PERC 5i) storage to give me a choice of where to put stuff depending on how important it is.
[Reply]
PeterNem Reply:
July 4th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
That should be 4*500….
[Reply]
I have installed a HP E200 raid controller (don’t forget to order the special SATA cable from HP) with 4 X 1 TB Samsung spinpoint F1 and created a RAID 5 with the four disks. Then created a LUN of 30 GB to install esx4. Has been running for a month and works great for the price. Not as fast a real server but for a lab thats perfect and quiet.
[Reply]
do you know if is there other way to install the VIC with out a direct web browser and download?
[Reply]
I have the ML115 G5 with an E200 controller. The system runs fine but I cannot monitor the storage in Vmware. Does anyone know a way to load JUST the E200 controller stuff without loading ALL the HP agents? It works for about 30 seconds until I get the PSOD on the agents not finding something else. Any help would be greatly appreciated
[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
July 16th, 2009 at 7:20 am
Hi tarbour,
Unfortunately you are unable to get any e200 controller or attached disk status updates from within ESX/ESXi. The HP agents themselves only work with the Prolaint 300 > (ie: 500, etc) range of servers so the 100 series which includes the ML110 and ML115’s are not able to take advantage of the HP agents. Rather annoying really – but I guess HP deem the agents as an Enterprise level ‘feature’.
The Dell PERC 5i which can be run within an ML110/ML115 does provide controller and disk status updates back to ESX/ESXi.
Hope this helps,
Si
[Reply]
I`m hitting brick walls left right and centre with getting Raid 5 working with 4x 1TB sata disks.
I`ve tried 2x different storage controllers but hit the 2TB / RAID 5 problem. I managed to obtain a HP P400 controller and purchased the sata cable. First hit problems with 2tb limit so upgraded the firmware on the controller and managed to get past that, now I can configure raid 5 with 4x 1tb disks….. but esxi wont see the array at all, although it does see the storage controller.
Has anyone got Raid 5 with 4x disks over 2tb working on the P400 controller ?
I`ll get the raid controllers I used previously for peoples reference, but wont be till tomorrow as I`m off to bed as I`ve had enough for one night !
[Reply]
850cc Reply:
July 21st, 2009 at 4:50 am
Hi,
ESX does indeed not see partitions greater than 2 TB. I have created one array in R5 of 4 X 1 TB and then made 3 partitions/LUNs. One 30 GB to install ESX and then some partitions/LUNS that are smaller then 2 TB. This works fine with my ML110 and HPE200
[Reply]
further to my post above, this is with a ML115
[Reply]
can you confirm what software you used to create the additional partition / Luns ?
i`m booting off usb so no need for the 30gb partition for esxi install.
[Reply]
850cc Reply:
July 21st, 2009 at 4:35 pm
You need the HP bootable ACU CD. Here is the URL and with this cd you create a array and several logical drives (smaller then 2TB) to use up all the space in your array. Good luck
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=1121516&prodNameId=3288134&swEnvOID=1005&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-f0790470403f4da3bd94126308
[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
July 21st, 2009 at 9:33 pm
Thanks for the useful info.
Si
[Reply]
thanks for the info above, I was downloading it as I got this message.
I can now confirm that my 4×1tb drives are now configured in a raid 5 array with 2x 1.4x TB logical drives and can be seen by esxi after creating 2x datastores.
now just to migrate my win 2003 / exchange 2003 servers to win 2008 / exchange 2007
[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
July 21st, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Result !
I’m also thinking of finally buying a few more 1TB drives if I can find them for the right price.
Good luck with your server migrations.
Si
[Reply]
I got mine from http://www.scan.co.uk
http://www.scan.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductId=23170
[Reply]
Hello,
I have just installed the latest BIOS along with ESXi 4.0 and the fan is very loud and does not cut out after the bios loads. Anyone else getting this? It used to be so quite but now it is too loud.
Thanks
[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
August 6th, 2009 at 8:31 am
Hi,
I haven’t updated my BIOS recently though what version are you running?
This isn’t a problem I’ve heard of before. Could be a problem with the onboard environmental monitoring chip perhaps?
Cheers,
Simon
[Reply]
msuk Reply:
August 6th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Hi,
I am using 2009.07.06 (A) (29 Jul 2009), looking through the hp forum another person had the same problem and had to have the motherboard replaced. A friend of mine had the same problem and had their board replaced.
I have call logged with hp let’s see what they come up with.
Will keep you posted.
Thanks
[Reply]
rasman Reply:
August 16th, 2009 at 10:44 am
I had the motherboard replaced, updated the BIOS again with the new mb installed and while the engineer still on site, and it did the same thing again (ie. the fan will not shutdown).
Also tried downgrading the BIOS versions (still no joy)
So the motherboard was replaced again.. (left BIOS at 018 2008-05-26)
msuk Reply:
August 16th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Hi,
See this post, you also need to upgrade the ILO firmware from 3.05 to 3.11 and the fan problem goes away
http://forums13.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?admit=109447627+1250430247650+28353475&threadId=1361154
[...] too expensive either. Just been looking at that a ML115 This link seems to confirm what you say Installing VMware ESX and ESXi 3.5 on an HP Proliant ML115 G5 Quad Core. | TechHead.co.uk and there's one here HP ML115 'Ideal Virtualisation Testbed' Bundle | [...]
[...] Posted on November 16, 2009. Filed under: VMWare | Tags: ML115, VMWare | http://www.techhead.co.uk/installing-vmware-esx-and-esxi-35-on-an-hp-proliant-ml115-g5-quad-core [...]
Hi there,
I found this Site through Google.
I have bought a HP ML 110 G5 with 2 * 160 GB WD Drives, 4 GB Kingston RAM, 3 GHz Intel Xeon CPU with a Smart Array E200 128 MB Controller.
Since I have unpacked the Server, I am trying to find out why this Server is so extremely slow. I have installed ESXi 4.0. In the ESXi I have installed Win7 Ultimate. The Installation took 1.5 hours!!!!
The ISO was located on the same Datastore.
When I look at the Disk Performance in ESXi, I see that it only reaches 5764 KBps. What are you guys having?
I am running the 2 160 Gig Drives in RAID1.
I have also tried to use the Onboard SATA Controller and had the same slow Performance.
I have tested the same Win7 installation at Work on a Dell Optiplex 745 and the installation was finished in 15 Minutes!!!!
I think that my ML110 G5 has a faulty Mainboard because the Disk Speed is extremly slow.
I really dont know what else I can try.
Has anyone else experienced such kind of a thing?
Greets from Switzerland
Matt
[Reply]