Does ESXi 5 support local storage for storing VM images?

Question

I have a home server that I'd like to use with ESXi. It's a fairly decent system with a 45W Dual Core AMD Athlon with 6GB DDR RAM running in Dual Channel mode.

Would ESXi 5 let me use local data stores instead of using NFS or iSCSI target?

Thanks,

F.

Answer 1

Short answer: Yes it will. It will create a local VMFS partition.

You will be locked out of more advanced features that require shared storage: DRS, High Availability,Fault Tolerance, etc'. But those require vCenter and multiple ESX servers in any case.