For the past 6 years, the Apple Mac Mini has been one of the most popular hardware platforms for Virtualizing MacOS running on VMware vSphere enabling our customers to develop and build iOS and MacOS applications. With that said, VMware has historically only supported two Apple hardware platforms: Xserve (now EOL'd) and the Mac Pro (6,1) which is officially listed on VMware's Hardware Compatibility list and this has been officially supported by VMware since 2012 when we first introduced support for MacOS Virtualization with the vSphere 5.0 release.
As many of you know, I have been a huge advocate of this platform for a number of years now and I have been working with various Engineers over the years to ensure that we have the exact same user experience when working with ESXi on the Mac Mini as you do with the Mac Pro. I still recall in the early days where it took several "hacks" to get ESXi to successfully boot and install.
Today, ESXi installs on the Mac Mini just like any other x86 platform. It runs amazing well for our customers, especially for a consumer device, who have deployed them in their datacenters ranging from a couple hundred to several thousands for some of our larger Enterprise customers, one such example is MacStadium, the largest Apple Infrastructure-as-a-service provider which many of the Fortune 100/500 companies are leveraging to provide them with a platform to build and develop for the Apple eco-system.
UPDATE (08/27/20) - Apple 2018 Mac Mini 8,1 has been added to VMware HCL which supports both ESXi 6.7 Update 3 (Patch 03) & ESXi 7.0b
However, one request that we frequently hear from our customers is when can VMware officially support the Mac Mini and have it listed on the HCL? Today, I am happy to announce that the Apple Mac Mini 6,2 (Late 2012) and the Apple Mac Mini 7,1 (Late 2014) is now officially supported by VMware and has been listed on the VMware HCL for latest release of ESXi 6.7 Update 2! One important thing to note is that the Apple Mac Mini is not an Enterprise-class hardware platform and as such, the hardware may be less reliable than what you are normally used to. To ensure customers have the best possible support experience, VMware has published KB71142 which customers should review prior to calling VMware Support.
I hope this welcome news clearly demonstrates VMware's continued commitment and support to all of our existing and future customers who have a need to virtualize Apple MacOS and vSphere is definitely the platform to run this and any other workload on!
This is awesome news and I truly hope that the T2 chip limitations are overcome soon as well!
Very good news ! Too bad that is for devices that aren’t sold anymore, but that proves the interest into this types of computers. I’m really looking for the future support of the T2 one now…
Hi William, do you know if there any plans to support Supermicro A+ Server E301-9D-8CN4? It looks like a very good and less expensive alternative to SYS-E300-9D
Can someone from VMware please reach out to Apple to get this T2 POS chip working with VMware ESXi?
Please.
Wondering if you think Intel NUC will be on HCL? Thanks
That’s wonderful news! Great to see more Apple hardware on HCL.
Any chance you know how to enable hardware monitoring on those pre-T2 mac mini and mac pro (2013)? I’m interested in temperature sensors. Looks like ESXi does not integrates with SMC. Maybe there’s some documentation how to create cim provider or something similar?
Hi all,
I need your advice for home lab. I was hoping new gen Mac Mini’s ESXi problem will be solved bu still no solution. I need compact system that I can carry with me to demo or workshops with minimum 64 GB RAM with good CPU and 1-2 TB SSD.
Mehmet
Great news…. definitely want to see ESXi working on modern Mac hardware, though…. C’mon Apple!
Linux now works on the new Mac Mini https://linuxwit.ch/blog/2020/01/installing-fedora-on-mac-mini/ with just minor tweaks to the NVMe driver http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-nvme/2019-August/thread.html#26248 so what are the odds of ESXi support now?
Will a MacMini 7 with an i7-4578U work?
Mac Mini 6,2, 7,1 & 8,1 are all on the HCL. There’s a limitation with the HCL tool as the CPUs in the Mini’s are consumer grade which don’t match exactly. As long as you’re using one of these models and the version of ESXi listed on the HCL, you’re fully supported 🙂
Does anyone know why Mac Pro 6,1 4 core isn’t on the HCL for esxi 7, but Mac Pro 6,1 6 core and higher is?
It’s most likely that we didn’t have the 4-Core model on hand during the certification
Ah, was wondering if there was some strange hardware difference that wasn’t readily noticeable… either way, my 4-core model is working fine with the most recent esxi 7.