ESXi Disk Passthrough, Mobo or Controller dependant?

[Atomicslave]

Hi There,

I am just wondering if the ESXi Disk pass through is Motherboard or Controller reliant.

I have an Intel S5000PSLROMB which has VT (but not enhanced VT) and it wont support passthrough but i am buying an Areca 1880i controller and i am hoping it will allow me to passthrough.

Anyone know if this will work?

 

[emc]

The motherboard (& CPU) need to support VT-d (IOMMU for AMD) in order for VMDirectPath to work for PCI/-e devices

 

[Jesse B]

VT-d is required for PCI/-e pass-through. For intel, all the Q-series chipsets support this, as well as the server chipsets (C20X). Some newer desktop boards support it as well, but it's hit or miss. No idea for AMD boards.

 

[Atomicslave]

Thx for all the info, looks like i got VT but not VT-D might try hyper-V it seems like it will allow me to do it.

 

[Vader]

You can't "passthrough" pci-e devices in Hyper-V. You can passthrough Disks, however, just remember when you do that you lose snapshot support..etc.