Cheapest home lab server??? Raspberry Pi 4 Virtualization Server ESXi Arm edition

Are you looking for the cheapest way to get into a home lab server? What if you could run a hypervisor on top of your Raspberry Pi 4 device? VMware ESXi on Arm enables running the VMware vSphere ESXi hypervisor on top of your Raspberry Pi and can potentially be a great way for many who want to delve into running a home lab environment to spin up a virtualization server for super cheap!

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Introduction - 0:00
Overview of ESXi on Arm - 0:46
Description of VMware Flings - 1:01
Looking at the official ESXi fling site - 1:53
Looking at Raspberry Pi 4 to run ESXi on Arm - 2:28
Recommendations for DRS and other vCenter features - 3:09
What do you need to get started? 3:18
Looking at Amazon for Raspberry Pi 4 devices - 4:00
Kit that I have in the lab - 4:45
USB flash devices and how many you need - 5:17
Downloading the files needed for the ESXi on Arm installatio - 5:35
Downloading the ESXi Arm ISO file - 5:48
Downloading the latest UEFI firmware for Raspberry Pi 4 device - 6:22
Downloading the firmware master package for Raspberry PI 4 firmware - 6:42
Now with files downloaded, we can extract files and merge them - 7:10
Extracting packages - 7:30
Merging the files needed from both packages - 7:41
Selecting the files we need and pasting all files merging and overwriting files - 8:16
Formatting the microSD card and copying over files - 8:49
Copying the contents of teh boot folder to teh microSD card - 9:24
Updating the bootloader for the Raspberry Pi 4 device - 9:41
Create the installation media for ESXi on Arm - 10:39
Inserting the microSD cards and 2 USB drives for installation and target of the installation - 11:27
Changing a Raspberry Pi BIOS setting for limiting RAM to 3GB and disabling the setting - 11:55
Ready to boot Raspberry Pi 4 device - 12:34
Logging into the host interface in ESXi on Arm - 13:13
Looking around the interface - 13:30
Added the ESXi on Arm in vCenter Server - 14:13
I have added an additional USB drive and adding a datastore - 14:33
Datastore created successfully - 15:00
Talking about installing a VM on ESXi on Arm - 15:05
Use cases for ESXi on Arm - 15:20
Wrapping up thoughts on ESXi on Arm and the home lab! 17:09

VMware Fling Site for ESXi Arm Edition:

Raspberry Pi 4 device master firmware:

Raspberry Pi 4 UEFI firmware:

My full write up on loading ESXi on Arm on Raspberry Pi 4:

[jeffnew]

A really well done video and tutorial on how to get ESXi installed on a Pi, for no reason at all. A Raspberry Pi is literally more expensive right now than an off-lease Dell PowerEdge server. VMware will be using ESXi for ARM to run distributed power units (smart NICs), which promise to take some of of the networking load off the server's main CPUs. I would like to credit VMware for, in part, developing ESXi for ARM for the enthusiast community, but VMware has a long history of NOT catering to or aiding that community in at way.

[DietrichSchomberg]

nice video! 👍had this running some years ago with a "early" version. wasn't running that smooth but was impressive having this enterprise grade hypervisor running on this smal formfactor device AND the 8GB version was way cheaper than these days
beside "ESXi on arm" ... wouid be drunk within minutes when having a shot on each time you mention this 😃

[Lavonwoods]

I've tried everything and I can't get a virtual machine to start up at all. Looks like the default ESXi install comes with missing ROMS in the /usr/lib/vmware/roms folder and it throws errors whenever starting any VM. Its really a dissapointment that I can't get this working on a PI 4. I've installed this thing like 3 times.

[oldsku]

Thanks Brandon! Now i have ESXI installed on my Raspberry Pi 4 8gb and this is awesome!🚀🚀🚀

[Felix-vehs]

A old laptop is the best cheap homelab server IMHO, even has KVM and UPS build in :^)

The Raspberry Pi 2/4/8 GB costs 100€/150€/200€ where I live, if they are even available at all ... :(

[kanemad]

The raspberry pi isn't cheap. You can get refurbished thin clients for half the price and multiple of the computing power, inkl real virtualization, expandability and just slightly higher power consumption (6-12w idling).

[MrShiffles]

Like your channel and I also think the Pi is handy for so many different things (just subbed!) however I hold high value in my single Pi 4b w/ 4GB...I've got the little guy running some crucial containers/servers in my homelab and I just don't see it doing any kind of meaningful VM type of workloads...this is a great thorough video though and I reckon this info would be useful for folks hoarding a nice collection of Pi's...I am saving up for a 3 or 4 node cluster build using some off-lease "tinyminimicro" 1L PC's and tinkering with Proxmox/K3s and Ansible :0)

[SnordCranston]

I followed the instructions but couldn't get the system to boot the firmware. I used an card with just the UEFI firmware (no master firmware) and it booted and installed fine. Thanks for a great video giving me something new to experiment with.

[armisis]

OK I got 6 raspberry pi 5(8gb). I am going to try to make a esi cluster. Really wish vmware offered free versions for home labs for learning non commercial usage sigh....

[ukaszszura]

Hi Anyone know where to get esxi-arm-ISO now?

[patricktuliao]

How can i deploy virtual machine inside vmware esxi on arm fling into the cloud?

[zapo]

@VirtualizationHowto Hello, can I run up-to-date and trouble-free virtualization by applying the methods in your video with the Raspberry Pi 5 8GB Ram version? Additionally, is there a written article for the video? Thank you for your sharing.

[Lp-zetg]

I assumed that pi 4b 8gb ram is the minimum for running ESXI. Correct?

[guruslakkimar]

@13.22 my password is not working - can anyone help on why or what needs to be done please ? [login is: root, password ?] (my keyboard correct and even i have writen it down - still not working )

[richardgarrow]

HI Question, not sure if I missed this or not. After installing the ESXi software on the PI, do I need to keep the Micro SD card in or can I plug my original SD card back in. Another question which I would be very interested in knowing is, could transfer everything off the USB drive to MicroSD and just boot right off that then you have your USB’s available for bigger drives. Just wondering.. Thanks I only found you a few weeks ago, and like your channel it has some interesting stuff. While the Pi’s right now are not cheap, I still think they are great and I just bought another one, yea I know 200 is lot of cash these days, but hey if was still going to the Bar, and smoking I would have dropped that in a weekend so at least this way I have something for my money.. Thanks

Useful video. Do you think Pi 3 is too small to run the ESXi?

[Mongob]

I think I’m gonna go this route instead of buying an older Poweredge R710 to start playing around with ESXI

[kanemad]

Please make a video to objectively compare raspberry pi virtualization performance with low budget, low power and silent thin clients. Comparing power consumption ratio to performance and time ratio.
You have all the necessary resources to do that. 50bugs investment in a refurbished thin client should be reasonable for the YouTube income too.
People should know what they are getting.

[adamtheman]

not really cheap raspberry pi are sold out and if you find one online you end up paying about $300CAD where it use to be $100 with tax for the 8GB

[hendrikkooistra]

Its not free you can only use it for 180 days then you neeed to reinstall