VMware VMDirectPath and Intel VT-d explained in 3 minutes

Posted by Paul Braren on Sep 30 2013 in
  • CPU
  • ESXi
  • Wow, it's been 5 years since "VMware VMDirectPath and Intel VT-d" was published on VMware TV. This 3 minute spot is an oldie but goodie, still relevant, still spot on in its concise description of the benefits of pass through in the enterprise, particularly well suited for 10 gigabit NICs. While the home virtualization enthusiast may be more into passing a USB 3.0 PCI card through to a VM for full speed access to consumer USB 3.0 devices, the concepts and the capabilities remain largely the same. I publish this now, because I'm having better luck with passing PCI cards through to VMs on the new ESXi 5.5 than I did with ESXi 5.1. Enjoy!

    See also:

    TinkerTry.com/?s=vt-d+or+vmdirectpath
    Google Site Search for all VT-d or VMDirectPath articles on TinkerTry.com

    VMDirectPath I/O Basic Setup
    by Eric Shanks on Jul 09 2012

    Wow, is that a 62TB drive in my home lab?
    by Paul Braren on Sep 07 2013

    and of course, after trying out 5 consumer motherboards for VT-d compatibility, one of my first articles that helped launch this site, where ASRock and MSI won out over Gigabyte and ASUS:

    Superguide: Z68 Sandybridge Motherboard VT-d Test Matrix: Which Mobo/CPU combo works with VMware ESXi 4.1U1 VMDirectPath feature?

    TinkerTry.com/vmdirectpath by Paul Braren Jul 14 2011