#Ds81 vmware 6.0 update
#Ds81 vmware 6.0 mac

If you think you will need more CPU horsepower, you can look at the Core i5 ( NUC6i5SYH) model which is slightly more expensive than the i3.В I opted for an all-flash configuration because I not only wanted the performance butВ I also wanted to take advantageВ of the much anticipated Deduplication and Compression feature in VSAN 6.2В which is only supported withВ an all-flash VSAN setup.

Bill of Materials (BOM)Д«elow are the components with links that I used for my configuration which is partially based on budget as well as recommendations from others who have a similarВ setup.

PleaseВ use this platform at your own risk. This article is broken down into the following sections:Дisclaimer: The Intel NUC is not on VMware's official Hardware CompatibilityВ List (HCL) and there forВ is not officially supported by VMware. yet and so I figure I wouldВ together a post with all the details in case others were looking to build a similar lab.

#Ds81 vmware 6.0 update

There haveВ been quite a bit of interest in what I ended up purchasing for running VSAN 6.2 (vSphere 6.0 Update 2) which has not GA'ed. With the added support for 32GB of memory and theВ ability to house two disk drives (M.2 and 2.5'), this was the update I was finally waitingВ for to pull the trigger and refresh my home lab given 16GB was just not cutting it for the work I was doing anymore.

#Ds81 vmware 6.0 mac

I have been keeping an eye on the Intel NUC for some time now but due to the same memory limitation as the Mac Mini, I had never considered it as viable option, especially given that I own a Mac Mini already. Earlier this year, I found out from fellow blogger Florian GrehlВ that Intel has just released their 6th generation of the Intel NUC which officially adds support for 32GB of memory. I was really hoping that Apple would have released an update to their Mac Mini platform last year that would include support for 32GB of memory, but instead it was a very minor update and was mostly a let down which you can read more about here. As manyВ of you know, I have been happily usingВ an Apple Mac Mini for my personal vSphere home lab for the past fewВ years now.В I absolutely love theВ simplicity and the versatility of theВ platform toВ easily runВ a basic vSphere lab to being able toВ consumeВ advanced capabilities of the vSphere platform like VMware VSAN or NSXВ for example.В The Mac Mini's also supports more complex networking configurations by allowing you to addВ an additional network adapter whichВ leveragesВ the built-in Thunderbolt adapterВ which many other similarВ form factors lack.В Having said thatВ all that, one major limitation with the Mac Mini platform has always been the limited amount of memory it can support which is a maximum of 16GB (same limitation asВ other form factors in this space).В Although it is definitely possibleВ to run a vSphere lab with only 16GB of memory, it does limit you some what on what you can deploy which is challenging if you want to explore other solutionsВ like VSAN, NSX and vRealize.