This is one of the best enthusiast ESXi virtualization motherboard I have come across so far: ASRock Z87 Extreme6 (maybe second to ASRock Z77 Extreme11).
Some of the highlights:

• Onboard USB header
• VT-d passthrough
• Debug LED
• Dual Intel NICs

I’m very fond of installing ESXi on a USB stick to separate it from the rest of the storage. Previously I have removed the metal bracket from “onboard-USB-header-to-rear-I/O-bracket” (whatever do they call these things?) that used to come along with motherboards a couple of years back, to have an internal USB header.

Secondly, ASRock is one of the few manufacturers that supports VT-d on as many of their motherboards as possible. Even on boards with a chipset not officially supporting VT-d, like the Z77. Here is my previous test of ASRock Z77 Pro4-M. See below for some VT-d tests.

Finally, the debug code LED. This brings some lovely overclocking memories back to life. One of the main reasons for choosing Abit over Asus back in the P3 and P4 days was this very tiny feature. The POST codes proved to be extremely valuable when pushing the very last bit of performance out of a system. Anyway, I’m way off track. Let’s look at some pictures and some of my other findings.

Specifications

• Intel Z87 chipset
• Intel Haswell CPU support, socket 1150
• Four DIMMS, supporting 32GB RAM
• Dual Intel Gigabit LAN (I217V + I211AT)
• USB socket directly on the board
• POST debug code display
• 8x USB3

The dual Intel network controllers is a real positive thing for us ESXi persons and I was really exited about this. But, neither of these controllers are supported by ESXi 5.5 out of the box. The I217 NIC can be made to work if a newer driver is supplied. However, the I211 NIC is a scaled down desktop version, as far as I have read and I have not yet found a way to make work.

Apart from the Z87 based SATA controller, there are also four additional ports connected to two controllers made by ASMedia. Two ports to each controller, whereas one port double as a ESATA port. The name of the controllers are “ASM1062”.

In total, there are eight USB3 ports where four are connected to the Z87 chipset and four connected to a controller also made by ASMedia. The four rear I/O ones are connected to the ASMedia controller and the four internal ones to the Z87 chipset. I am not entirely sure if I think this was the best move by ASRock. I can argue either way.

VT-d testing

While gathering fact about the board on the Internet I came across some comments fearing the removal of the VT-d setting for some boards and with some BIOS versions. This board, with the shipping BIOS (P2.10), has the VT-d option. According to some BIOS release notes, even though the VT-d option is removed it is supposed to be enabled by default if all criterias are met.

ESXi 5.5 is capable of utilizing the VT-d functionality with this board. More specifically DirectPath I/O as VMware calls it. Here are some of my findings:

• Both NICs can be passed on to a VM, even though none of them are supported out of the box by ESXi 5.5, and only one can be made operational with additional drivers.
• Both ASMedia SATA controllers show up and can be passed on to a VM. However, when I tried this with a Ubuntu 13.10 VM I could not get any drive connected to show up. The controller is detected in the VM but that is all. The controller is detected by Ubuntu 13.10 when run natively.
• The ASMedia USB3 controller does not show up in the passthrough view. There are two Z87 USB controllers showing up but it is not clear to me if either or both of them are USB3.
• An LSI 9211-8i card, actually a flashed M1015, inserted into the top most PCI-Express 16x slot did not show up as available for passthrough. The card works in this port when running Ubuntu 13.10 natively. Inserting the card in the second slot made it available for passthrough and it worked well with Ubuntu 13.10.

Here is a screenshot of the default available passthrough devices:

Summary

All in all, a board with great potential. If drivers arrive for the second Intel NIC and some of the passthrough issues are sorted out it will be a killer motherboard. Nothing critical by any means, but the flexibility is reduced if you need to use one PCI(-Express) slot for another NIC, all SATA ports or an separate RAID controller.

I will hopefully be able to present upcoming articles on how to customize an ESXi image for this board and present some storage benchmarks.

*Update 2014-01-04*
Here is how to include a driver the one of the Intel network controllers on this board:
Include Intel network drivers in an ESXi ISO
Also, here is some storage benchmarks related to this board:
Storage performance of ASRock Z87 Extreme6

Strike while the iron is hot

I’m building a workstation for a friend and he chose a ASRock Z77 Pro4-M motherboard. I have had all the parts for a week and it wasn’t until today it struck me that there are some Z77 motherboards that support VT-d. There have been some conflicting information on whether or not VT-d is supported in the Z77 chipset. According to the latest information at the Intel site, VT-d is supported on Z77. However, many motherboard manufacturers have not implemented it (yet?).

Since I had the chance to test this myself I decided to try it out while I had the chance. The specifications of the workstation are as follows:

• Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Pro4-M (specifications)
• Processor: Intel Core i7 3770K
• Memory: Corsair XMS 2x8GB
• Storage: Intel SSD 520 240GB
• PSU: beQuiet Straight Power 400W 80+ Gold
• Case: Fractal Design Define Mini

Now you’re thinking; “this won’t turn out well with a K-processor”… Absolutely right, the Core i7 3770K does not support VT-d. After asking around I happened to find a Core i5 2400 for this test. As you can see on the Intel Ark page, VT-d is supported for that model.

Here are some shots of the ASRock mobo which is really good looking in my opinion.

Let’s hook it up and see if we can get some DirectPath I/O device passthrough going.

There are two settings for virtualization in the BIOS. One (VT-x) is found under CPU configuration and the other (VT-d) is found under Northbridge configuration. ESXi 5.1 installs just fine to a USB stick and detects the onboard NIC, which by the way is a Realtek 8168. An Intel NIC would have been preferred. Once ESXi is installed we can connect to it with the vSphere client and see that we can enable DirectPath.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any other PCI-Express card available to make a more extensive test. The device I have selected, which vSphere fails to detect, is the ASMedia SATA controller. This controller is used for one internal SATA port and either one internal or the E-SATA port on the back I/O panel.

Create a Virtual Machine, change all settings for it and save the changes. Launch the settings again and Add the PCI device:

Once the PCI device is connected, some settings are not possible to change anymore. It is possible to remove the PCI device, change the settings and re-add the PCI device. Also, adding the PCI device and changing settings at the same time might throw some error messages.

I choose to fire up an Ubuntu 12.04 Live CD just to see if it works. Here is what the controller looks like. I hooked up an old spare drive to the ASMedia controller and as we can see it is correctly detected.

This was a really quick test but I will definitely give ASRock boards another try for upcoming build. Please, ASRock, send me your Z77 Extreme11 board for evaluation. Z77 with LSI onboard SATA is a real killer!

To summarize my short experience with this board:

• VT-d on Z77 is working!
• non-K CPU overclocking
• 3x PCI-Express 16x ports for add in cards.
• Power ON-to-boot is really quick
• Realtek NIC is a slight negative. Intel would have been better.