Intel's new Ruler form factor allows up to 1PB of NVMe in 1U, along with a new 2.5" 3.8TB SATA SSD and Dual Port SSDs for Data Centers

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…

Aug 15 2017

World's First Close Look at Intel Optane SSD DC P4800X Series - PCIe NVMe arrives with 375GB of 3D XPoint!

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…

Aug 11 2017

How to find NVMe SSD firmware versions on VMware ESXi using ESXCLI

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…

Aug 5 2017

VMUG Advantage just added the latest vRealize Automation Enterprise to EVALExperience!

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…

Aug 3 2017

10G networking for your Laptop - Promise SANLink3 T1 NBaseT Adapter blesses your Thunderbolt 3/USB-C desktop or laptop with 1.0/2.5/5.0/10GbE speeds

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 SL3T1GL in the description Newegg - Promise Thunderbolt 3 to Base-T Ethernet Bus Powered Adapter (SL3T1GL) …

Jul 30 2017

See "What's inside VMware vSphere 6.5 Update 1" by Florian Grehl at virten.net featuring historical ESX/ESXi graph

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"…

Jul 28 2017

How to easily update your VMware Hypervisor from 6.5.x to 6.5 Update 1 (ESXi 6.5 U1)

Important Update - On Mar 20 2018, VMware VMSA-2018-0004.3 announced that CVE-2017-5715 (Spectre-2) mitigation is now included in the latest patch that you should be using instead of the older patch featured in the original article below. You'll find the newer article that features an even easier…

Jul 28 2017

How to easily update your VMware vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5.x to 6.5 Update 1 (VCSA 6.5 U1)

Important Update - On Mar 20 2018, VMware VMSA-2018-0004.3 announced that CVE-2017-5715 (Spectre-2) mitigation is now included in the latest patch that you should be using instead of the older patch featured in the original article below. You'll find the newer article here: How to easily update…

Jul 28 2017

VMware vSphere 6.5 Update 1 downloads available (VCSA 6.5 U1 / ESXi 6.5 U1), new vSAN 6.6.1 goodness baked right in

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…

Jul 27 2017

I'm going to VMworld 2017 US, my 6th time attending!

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…

Jul 25 2017

Supermicro SuperServer Workstation Graphics Card selection revisited, featuring VMware ESXi 6.5 passthrough testing of HHHL PCIe GPUs

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…

Jul 19 2017

How to easily update your VMware vCenter Server Appliance from VCSA 6.5.x to 6.5.0e

Important Update - On Mar 20 2018, VMware VMSA-2018-0004.3 announced that CVE-2017-5715 (Spectre-2) mitigation is now included in the latest patch that you should be using instead of the older patch featured in the original article below. You'll find the newer article here: How to easily update…

Jul 17 2017

Back-level VMware ESXi 6.5 vmkusb to 6.0 to restore Windows 10 VM's USB sound

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,…

Jun 19 2017

Intel Optane M.2 16GB/32GB consumer NVMe SSDs for Windows caching are not that fast as VMware VMFS or NTFS, save up for bigger PCIe versions

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 Loss Da…

Jun 11 2017

Voting now open for Top vBlog 2017

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…

Jun 4 2017

VeeamON 2017 - Availability Suite v10 announced featuring backup of NASs and built-in Management for new Veeam Agent for Windows v2, unifying VM & PC backups

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.…

May 31 2017

The VeeamON 2017 Experience

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…

May 26 2017

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!

I've been a big fan of the EVALExperience offering from the good folks at the VMware User Group organization for years. It's just one of the many benefits of subscribing to VMUG Advantage, and is worth far more than the $200 it costs online, or $180 at your friendly neighborhood VMUG UserCon, as…

May 1 2017

Samsung tells M.2 NVMe SSD firmware updaters "Download Limit Exceeded. We apologize for your inconvenience." Seriously?

Trying to go here: www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools.html or here: www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/overview.html to get to the direct download URL here: ssd.samsungsemi.com/ecomobile/ssd/update14.do?fname=/Samsung_SSD_960_PRO_2B6QCXP7.iso for the latest…

Apr 27 2017

How to import your VCSA certificate so ALL VMware vSphere browser security warnings go away in Windows 10

You can free up tons of vertical real-estate when doing your day-to-day vSphere sysadmin by hiding the URLs and tabs and dead space in Chrome, see: VMware vSphere Taskbar Shortcuts Unleashed - profile switcher isolated and uncluttered Chrome Browser UIs act like native Windows apps! Mar 27 2017 …

Apr 26 2017

How to fix inaccurate Xeon D Hardware Health sensor readings on VMware ESXi 6.5.x, since sfcbd CIM service is off by default

Backstory See, everything is very healthy, ESXi 6.0 or 6.5! Back during the early test period of VMware's ESXi 6.5, I had inquired with VMware about a problem I had noticed on my Supermicro SuperServer SYS-5028D-TN4T 8 Core Bundle 2, featuring Xeon D-1541. You see, with 6.0, all VMware GUIs would…

Apr 23 2017

How to easily update your VMware Hypervisor from ESXi 6.5.x to 6.5.0d

Important Update - On Mar 20 2018, VMware VMSA-2018-0004.3 announced that CVE-2017-5715 (Spectre-2) mitigation is now included in the latest patch that you should be using instead of the older patch featured in the original article below. You'll find the newer article that features an even easier…

Apr 18 2017

How to easily update your VMware vCenter Server Appliance from VCSA 6.5.x to 6.5.0d

Important Update - On Mar 20 2018, VMware VMSA-2018-0004.3 announced that CVE-2017-5715 (Spectre-2) mitigation is now included in the latest patch that you should be using instead of the older patch featured in the original article below. You'll find the newer article here: How to easily update…

Apr 18 2017

vSAN 6.6 arrives, baked right into those VMware vSphere 6.5.0d bits that went GA today!

Just 6 months after vSAN 6.5! VMware vSAN 6.6 Release Notes VMware vSAN 6.6 | 18 April 2017 | ISO Build 5310538 Check for additions and updates to these release notes. This vSAN release is a big deal, with so many improvements. Behind the scenes, I've been working on NVMe pass through ideas for…

Apr 18 2017