The answer to this question for the Minisforum MS-A1 is yes and no. Let’s dive into this and see what you will need to do.
My Minisforum MS-A1
The unit that I have is the Minisforum MS-A1 with the AMD Ryzen 7 8700G processor with the Radeon 780M Graphics processor. I have a 96 GB memory kit installed in the unit and then also using the new NVMe memory tiering.
Below are just a few pics of the Minisforum unit to take a look at. From the front, you can’t tell any difference with the Minisforum MS-01.
Another view of the mini PC.
Looking at the internals.
No intel network adapters
Unfortunately, it is an AMD Ryzen mini PC that has (2) 2.5 Gbps Realtek network adapters. If you try to install VMware vSphere ESXi on the Minisforum MS-A1, you will see the following message that no network adapters were detected.
This is a show stopper and you can’t move forward with the install of VMware ESXi with this message.
It was extremely disappointing that the unit came with the non Intel NICs, especially since the MS-01 comes with (2) 10G and (2) 2.5G adapters that are all Intel-based. However, I will say that by in large, AMD Ryzen-based mini pcs seem to stick to Realtek network adapters. There are a few out there that incorporate Intel adapters, but these are not nearly as common as the Realtek variants.
So this is the no part of the answer to the question if the Minisforum MS-A1 can run VMware ESXi. However, there is a workaround as there always has been with Realtek network adapters. Unfortunately, we can’t use the onboard adapters that are Realtek based, but we can use a USB-based network adapter that will allow us to use an external USB adapter to get past the error about no network adapters being detected.
Good things for VMware ESXi installation
There is a point with the Minisforum MS-A1 I want to call out that is great. It has a uniform processor with 16 threads. With the Minisforum MS-01, it has the hybrid processor with the big-little architecture with performance and efficient cores.
The AMD Ryzen doesn’t have that. You have to add the boot parameter in the Minisforum MS-01 to use the hybrid processor.
After using the USB network adapter for installing VMware ESXi
I have a 1 gig USB network adapter that I have long used for testing out mini PCs with VMware that don’t have built-in Intel adapters. This has allowed me to get past this issue and test on many different mini PCs and how they run VMware ESXi.
Here you can see the USB network adapter that is installed in the Minisforum MS-A1.
Wrapping up
The Minisforum MS-A1 is a powerful little Mini PC that has the uniform Ryzen 7 8700G processor that is quick and provides great performance. Can it run VMware ESXi? Yes it can, but you will have to work around the issue with the onboard network adapters not being supported in VMware ESXi. You can get a cheap external USB NIC from Amazon though and quickly get around this issue. It is just a bummer to not be able to use the onboard adapters.
