Home Lab Upgrades! Assembling an Intel NUC11 & Installing VMware ESX 7

I had the opportunity recently to invest a little in upgrading my home lab. I decided on picking up two Intel NUC11 Performance mini PCs, which will run my VMware ESX lab. In this video, we’ll walk through what I bought & why, assembling the Intel NUCs, and installing/configuring ESX (including building a custom install image for the NUC drivers).

Full parts list & links to the VMware community drivers on my blog:

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Chapters:
0:00 – Intro & Current Lab info
1:35 – Parts List
3:18 – Intel NUC Assembly
6:49 – Building Custom ESX Install Image with NUC Drivers
11:08 – Checking NUC BIOS Settings
12:33 – Installing ESX on Intel NUC
14:48 – ESX Local Console Config (Management Network)
16:52 – Installing Custom Drivers via ESXCLI
20:10 – Configuring vMotion Network
21:49 – Connecting to Synology iSCSI
24:07 – Add New Host to vSphere
25:30 – vMotion Performance Test over 2.5GbE

Standard Disclaimer: Any comments / opinions here are my own, and do not represent my current or former employers.

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