Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 9.1:
Virtual NIC types in vSphere 5.5
(continued)
VM Hardware
Versions
Supported
Virtual
NIC Type
Description
Fle x ible
4, 7, 8, 9, 10
h is virtual NIC identifi es itself as a V l ance ad apter, an emu l ated
form of the AMD 79C970 PCnet32 10 Mbps NIC. Drivers for this
NIC are available in most 32-bit guest OSes. Once VMware Tools
is installed (we'll discuss VMware Tools later in this chapter),
this virtual NIC changes over to the higher-performance
VMXNET adapter. h e Flexible virtual NIC type is available for
use only with certain 32-bit guest OSes. For example, you can't
select the Flexible virtual NIC type for VMs running 32-bit ver-
sions of Windows Server 2008, but it is an option for 32-bit ver-
sions of Windows Server 2003.
VMXNET 2
(Enhanced)
4, 7, 8, 9, 10
h is virtual NIC type is based on the VMXNET adapter but pro-
vides additional high-performance features like jumbo frames
and hardware o oad. It's supported only for a limited set of
guest OSes.
V M X NET 3
7, 8, 9, 10
h e VMXNET 3 virtual NIC type is the latest version of a paravir-
t ua l i zed d r iver desig ned for per for mance. It off ers all the fea-
t ures of V M X NET 2 plus add it iona l feat ures l i ke mu lt iqueue
support, IPv6 o
oads, and MSI/MSI-X interrupt delivery. It's
supported only for VM hardware version 7 or later and for a lim-
ited set of guest OSes.
12.
Select New SCSI Controller to expand the selection area, and then click the drop-down
box to choose the appropriate SCSI adapter for the operating system selected on the Select
A Guest OS page of the Create New Virtual Machine Wizard.
The correct default driver should already be selected based on the previously selected
operating system. For example, the LSI Logic parallel adapter is selected automatically
when Windows Server 2003 is selected as the guest OS, but the LSI Logic SAS adapter is
selected when Windows Server 2008 is chosen as the guest OS. We provided some addi-
tional details on the different virtual SCSI adapters in Chapter 6.
Virtual Machine SCSI Controllers
Windows 2000 has built-in support for the BusLogic parallel SCSI controller, while Windows Server
2003 and later operating systems have built-in support for the LSI Logic parallel SCSI controller.
Additionally, Windows Server 2008 has support for the LSI Logic SAS controller. Windows XP
doesn't have built-in support for any of these, requiring a driver disk during installation. Choosing
the wrong controller will result in an error during the operating system installation. h e error states
that hard drives cannot be found. Choosing the wrong SCSI controller during a physical-to-v irtual
(P2V) operation will result in a “blue screen error” for a Windows guest OS inside the VM, and the
Windows installation will fail to boot.
