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I’ve had quite a few questions from readers over the past few weeks asking whether VMware vSphere 5 will run on the HP Proliant ML110 G5 or ML115 G5 servers? Both these models of server are highly popular amongst those running their own VMware vSphere or general home/work IT lab. They are small, quiet and have been relatively well priced, especially when HP had them on special at UK £90 each! But that is a few years ago now, and since then the AMD based ML115 series of Proliant has been dropped (and semi-replaced with the HP Microserver) and the ML110 model is up to the 7th generation (G7) – with a slightly heftier price tag associated with it.
Well, the good news is that I can confirm that VMware ESXi 5.0 (latest build at time of writing: 4659512) installs and runs on both the ML110 G5 and the ML115 G5. All of the core components are identified by the ESXi host as you can see from the screenshots below. So if you’re a proud owner of one of these great little servers in your work/home lab there is no better time to look at upgrading it to vSphere 5. 
HP Proliant ML110 G5
Disk Controller:
Network Card (embedded):
DirectPath I/O:
Power Management:
Health Status:
HP Proliant ML115 G5
Disk Controller:
Notice that as well as the onboard disk contoller, ESXi 5.0 has also successfully detected the HP Smart Array E200 hardware controller that I have installed into this server.
Network Card (embedded):
DirectPath I/O:
Power Management:
Health Status:
Thanks Simon for this info!
I searched the web for weeks not finding anything. So i will give Hypervisor 5 a try.
Hi Tom,
Glad it helped. 🙂
Cheers,
Simon
Have you managed to try it with your TS200 yet?
Many Thanks!
Kevin
Hi Kevin,
I ended up selling my Lenovo TS200 as I unfortunately ran out of space in my home office, as it was the largest server it was the first to go.
I will ask Simon Long who ended up buying it from me as I ‘m sure he’s tried by now.
Cheers,
Simon
Hi, can you say us which image you used? VMware default or the HP customised? Thank you for reply. Tomas
Hi Tomas,
I used the standard VMware ESXi/Hypervisor 5.0 image. Don’t use the HP image as it contains drivers, etc to access HP related parts of the hardware that don’t exist in the ML1xx series range of servers. As a result you will get a purple screen of death or a reboot. So just use the standard version available off of the VMware site.
Hope this helps.
Simon
Interesting that there’s lot more health info (fans, voltages, temperatures) available for the ML115G5 with ESXiv5. Thanks for posting this.
[…] Will the HP Proliant ML110 G5 & ML115 G5 work with VMware vSphere 5? (TechHead) VMware ESXi 5 whitebox supported motherboard (Ivo Beerens) […]
will it support FT on baremetal esxi and in that vESXi or two baremetal are required for FT
anyone tried wks 8.0 ..does FT works??
Simon, this is great news. However did you get a chance to make the HP server detect the Hard Drives on the E200 controller?
We all know the purple death using HP edition – bu knowing if your Raid has crashed is good to know upfront 🙂 and not when the Second disk in your Raid5 dies…. 🙂
Kind regards,
Christian
Some good news about ML110 and E200.
I updated my home lab to vSphere 5 this weekend. Since I had some parts lying around I built a 2nd ESXi 5.0 from these parts:
HP Proliant ML 110 G4 (2 GB RAM)
Smart Array E200 controller (no cache module) + cable
1 160GB SATA drive (connected to onboard SATA)
2 500GB SATA drives (connected to E200 as RAID1 volume)
I did install the standard VMware ESXi version, not the HP OEM version. Then the ESXi500-201109001.zip patch. Then I it connected to vCenter. At the moment the box boots from the 160GB drive, not from E200.
Since that box wasn’t running anything important I wanted to find out what happens if I install the HP Management Bundle.
And now the good news:
So far NO PSOD and E200 can be seen in the hardware overview ! I didn’t have to do anything special.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/511/ml110g4e200.png/
hi Simon
Do you think esxi will install on a HP ML110 G6?
Hi Jitesh,
Yes, I can confirm that ESXi will work on the HP ML110 G6, at least it does with the Xeon based model. I haven’t checked it with the standard non-Xeon models, though in theory it should also work on these.
I have the ML110 G6 Xeon x3430 and it is running the latest VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0 build without any problems.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Simon
Has anyone got ESXi 5 working with a ML110 G7?
If so, how did you do it?
Mine works fine with 4.1 but the installeer for 5 crashes with a PSOD.
@ jitesh
Yes 5 Works fine with a ML110 G6 as a couple of friends have their labs setup on one.
Hi,
Why is shows in snapshopt attached that VMdirect path is not supported,what about FT support?
For those that need to have ESXi 5 running on a ML110 G7.
It CAN be done!
Pop over to Erik Bussinks blog here.
http://www.bussink.ch/?p=382
What a guy!
What about disk performance with ESXi5 on the ML110G5? Mainstream SATA drives connected to onboard SATA ports (with no SmartArray HBAs) are detected and DS able, but can’t read or write more than 3-4MB/s each!!! So the machine results absolutely unusable, even for a lab setup, without an external NFS storage (which, instead, is fully pushed to the Gigabit NIC bw limits).
Is this a limitation in ESXi driver for ML110’s onboard SATA controller? Or does it need some fine-tuning somewhere?
The worst assembled whitebox PC for ESXi5 doesn’t show this problem…
Nor an ML110G6 (with the same SATA drives on the onboard “fake SA” B110) does.
Hi,
Did you ever get to the bottom of this?
-Sam
Martin>Can You get back to me?I have an ML110 G4 Xeon 3050 and I cant find the patch You mention…Any news about ESXi 5 5.1 on G4 ML110? thx