I'm super happy to have just been approved to have an informal TinkerTry meetup of sorts, over in the new VMTN Community area of VMvillage, as part of VMworld 2017 Las Vegas being held at Mandalay Bay again this year. One of my favorite things about meeting hardware enthusiasts is hearing more…
First, NAND based SSDs arrived in SATA, SAS, and PCIe form factors, almost a decade ago. In 2015, NVMe became widely available, in various shapes and sizes, including U.2 (looks like a thick metal 2.5" laptop drive), and HHHL (Half Height Half Length) PCIe cards, aka AIC (Add In Card)s. With…
Disclosure This SSD is on a temporary loan from Intel, and it appears to be an engineering sample, in the 375GB size that is planned for product launch. This loaner was made with no formal expectations or stipulations, just a brief chance to TinkerTry this datacenter technology in my own VMware…
Keeping this one short-and-simple, to really encourage you to visit the source article to read through details and tips found at: New ESXCLI Commands in vSphere 6.5 Nov 19 2016 by Florian Grehl at Virten.net If you're wondering if your NVMe drive might need a firmware update, and you're running…
On a closely related note, see also: VMUG Advantage just added the latest NSX 6.3.1 and All Flash vSAN 6.6 bits to EVALExperience, great for vSphere home labs, just $200 a year! May 01 2017 vSphere 6.5 Update 1 No word yet on when VMUGAdvantage EVALExperience downloads will offer last week's big…
Front and rear views of the Promise SANLink3 T1 NBaseT Adapter. Shop The Promise SANLink3 T1 NBaseT Adapter is available on: Amazon - Promise SL3T1GL Thunderbolt 3 to Base-T Ethernet Bus Powered Adapter Dell - Dell part #A9623557 eBay - All items with "SANLink3" in the description Newegg…
Sometimes there's a post that is so perfect as it is that I just have to call it out, hoping to extend the readership of the author's source article. Simple, elegant, and to the point, not exactly my strengths. I therefore present to you, with little words to say other than "read this"…
VMware ESXI 6.5 U1 Release Notes. The simple update method that this article details means you won't need the ISO Download Page for: ESXi 6.5 U1 | 27 JULY 2017 | Build 5969303 This upgrade is also known as version 6.5.0 Build 5969303 or 6.5U1. More about this update in KB 2149910: VMware ESXi 6.5,…
VMware vCenter Server Appliance Read the Release Notes. The simple update method that this article details means you won't need the ISO Download Page for: ESXi 6.5 U1 | 27 JULY 2017 | Build 5973321 This upgrade is also known as version 6.5.0.10000 or 6.5U1, as seen in the vCenter Server Appliance…
Just want the easy upgrade (rather than download ISO) methods for vSphere 6.5 Update 1, also known as 6.5U1 or 6.5 U1? No problem, jump on over to: How to easily update your VMware vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5.x to 6.5 Update 1 (VCSA 6.5 U1) How to easily update your VMware Hypervisor from…
Looking to ignore release notes and disclaimers/warnings to get right to the downloads and detailed upgrade procedures, even though I haven't tested them yet? There's no big fix or issue we're trying to resolve here, but if you're still in a hurry to try anyway, jump below. TinkerTry commenter…
I just got approval and booked my trip to VMworld, awesome! Last night, I was on the phone with some folks from Intel Storage, and when I mentioned that I just learned I'm going, one of my contacts there said he could hear me smile. He wasn't wrong! VMworld 2007 / 2008 / 2012 VMware's software…
HHHL stands for Half Height, Half Length (source). These are the type of single PCIe slot cards that fit into the Supermicro SuperServer SYS-5028D-TN4T mini-tower bundles, and are entirely PCIe bus powered. This means the watt consumption is generally under 70 watts at highest workloads, which…
VMware vCenter Server 6.5.0e Release Notes vCenter Server Appliance 6.5.0e | 15 JUNE 2017 | ISO Build 5705665 See also: Full Patch for VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.5.0e (2150416) kb.vmware.com/kb/2150416 Product Patch for vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 containing VMware software fixes,…
Today was a big announcement day for both Intel and VMware. But before I leave you wondering any longer, yes, those big claims assume Intel Optane / 3D XPoint Inside. VMware Video First up, we have The VMware Storage YouTube Channel posting this short video by Lee Caswell, VMware VP of Products,…
This article was originally intended for my audience at The Greater Boston Network Users Group at their July 11th meetup. Until I'm able to do a complete configuration walk through, this spot in a recent "Network Enthusiast" EdgeRouter video I created gives you a good look at how DNS is…
Back in March of 2017, I needed to go back to using my SuperServer Workstation as my daily driver Windows 10 workstation, in large part because of excessive video render times for 4K video production workflow. This mean it was time to revisit how well this VM worked with the latest ESXi 6.5.0d,…
Here are the Technical Specifications for the tested 32GB module. Intel® Optane™ Memory Series 32GB M.2 80mm Performance Sequential Read (up to) 1350 MB/s Sequential Write (up to) 290 MB/s Power - Active 3.5 Watts Power - Idle 1 Watt Endurance Rating (Lifetime Writes) 182.5 TB Enhanced Power…
In case you were wondering who makes Intel Xeon D based systems, wonder no more! Supermicro still has the most SKUs, but wow, what a diverse product line has sprung up in the roughly 15 months since the 4 to 16 core Xeon D variants began to ship in volume, joining the original 8 core Xeon D-1540.…
Jump to Eric Siebert's vSphere-land voting page here! Not into reading words right now? Just vote here. It's that time of year again, when Eric Siebert of vSphere-land starts the process of updating his famous vLaunchPad with about 300 virtualization blogs listed. He even carefully includes those…
Throughout the month of May 2017, there were a lot of processor announcements from both Intel and AMD. This competition heating up is likely to help bring the cost down, as explained here and here, a good thing. But so far, Intel's response to increased pressure from AMD seems a bit messy.…
If you've read TinkerTry for a while, you'll know I've enjoyed relying on Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE, right through version 1.5, to protect multiple physical PCs in my family. Several times a year, I'll do a full restore of important PCs to a VM, to be absolutely sure my backups are good.…
This article is a work in progress, more photos to be added soon. That's a lot of hi-res pics, glad I have KeyCDN ready for you! Had a great time at VeeamON 2017 in New Orleans, meeting many virtualization experts and bloggers for the first time. Oh, and I learned stuff too! There were also so many…
Working in hotels with your laptop can be a pain, sometimes literally. I mean really working, and producing content. Here's just some of the issues commonly noticed when traveling for work like I do: no secondary display, man do I miss having one way-too-high desktop to type comfortably on…
TinkerTry - Sensible datacenter
technology in the IT Pro's home. My opinions here, not my employer's.
Paul Braren, VCP 2.5/3/4/5, vExpert 2014/15/16/17, vExpert vSAN 2017.
Veeam Vanguard 2015/16/17.
Patronage | SuperServer Order Page
Detailed Intel Xeon D and NUC specs at: TinkerTry.com/compare
