Supported features for VMware virtual machine compatibility
Here is one of my most favorite VMware KB articles.
Supported features for virtual machine compatibility
|
Hardware |
ESXi 6.0 and later |
ESXi 5.5 and later |
ESXi 5.1 and later |
ESXi 5.0 and later |
ESX/ESXi 4.x and later |
|
Hardware version |
11 |
10 |
9 |
8 |
7 |
|
Maximum memory (GB) |
4080 |
1011 |
1011 |
1011 |
255 |
|
Maximum number of logical |
128 |
64 |
64 |
32 |
8 |
|
Maximum number of cores (virtual CPUs) per socket |
128 |
64 |
64 |
32 |
8 |
|
Maximum SCSI adapters |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
|
Bus Logic adapters |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
LSI Logic adapters |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
LSI-Logic SAS adapters |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
SATA adapters |
Yes* |
Yes* |
No |
No |
No |
|
VMware Paravirtual controllers |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Virtual SCSI disk |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
SCSI passthrough |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
SCSI hot plug support |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
IDE nodes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Virtual IDE disk |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Virtual IDE CDROMs |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
IDE hot plug support |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
Maximum NICs |
10 |
10 |
10 |
10 |
10 |
|
PCNet32 |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
VMXNet |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
VMXNet2 |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
VMXNet3 |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
E1000 |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
E1000e |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
|
USB 1.x and 2.0 |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
USB 3.0 |
Yes** |
Yes** |
Yes** |
Yes** |
No |
|
Maximum video memory (MB) |
512 |
512 |
512 |
128 |
128 |
|
SVGA displays |
10 |
10 |
10 |
10 |
10 |
|
SVGA 3D hardware acceleration |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
|
VMCI |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
PCI passthrough |
16 |
6 |
6 |
6 |
6 |
|
PCI hot plug support |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Nested HV support |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
vPMC support |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
Serial ports |
32 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
|
Parallel ports |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
|
Floppy devices |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
|
Guest OS support |
91 |
91 |
91 |
91 |
78 |
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