At the moment I am trying to figure out if my server is supported by ESX Server 3.5.
I've got the following hardware :
x346 8840-25U (Bios version 1.17)
IBM ServeRaid 7e (Adaptec AIC-7902) (Bios version 4.30.11)
2x QLogic HBA QLA-2340 (Bios version 1.54)
IBM FibreChannel DS4300 SAN (need to confirm the exact number)
According to HCL for version 3.5, The SCSI controller is supported (however, RAID isn't as it is software raid and ESX doesn't support the drivers for this configuration). The HBA are also supported in the HCL. My little research has led me to http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/serverproven/compat/us/nos/vmwareold.html which states that the x346 isn't supported for ESX 3.5
The question is while the combinaison of the x346 and ESX 3.5 isn't officially supported by IBM, does the configuration I currently have should still work without RAID. The second question is: If I want to boot a RAID configuration, would the ServeRaid 7k be supported for ESX 3.5 ? Finally, could I boot ESX 3.5 from the SAN directy and would it respect best practices for Virtualization.
Thanks