If ESXi is so small why is the download so big?
If you are like me you’ve probably wondered “if VMware’s ESXi hypervisor is supposed to be so small, then why is the downloadable installation media so huge?” As you can see from the image to the right, the current version is 241 MB! A download that size does not appear to be the tiny, embeddable hypervisor minus the Linux based Service Console we’ve all heard so much about. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to participate in a phone conversation a few weeks back with Amir Sharif, VMware Senior Product Manager, where I got the answer to this very question.
Amir explained to me that the VMware ESXi downloads (both for installation media and patches) contain 4 major components. These components and their approximate sizes are:
- VMware ESXi (32 MB)
- VMware VI Client (48 MB)
- VMware Tools (120 MB)
- Global and regional server vendor value-add customization bits (30 MB)
It’s important to note that there are several versions of the VMware Tools depending on the target OS, and there are two different bundle types for Linux OSes (.rpm and .tgz). There are multiple versions of server vendor customization bits as well. Therefore, VMware’s completeness to include all of these items in a single download makes for a large .iso file. In case you noticed the math doesn’t match the current version’s download size, that is because the 4 component sizes are approximates and will change from version to version.
ESXi comes in both free and licensed versions. Click the following image to get more information about ESXi and download your copy.
To learn more about ESXi also check out these presentations by Amir available on the web:
http://www.podtech.net/home/5398/top-four-differences-between-esxi-and-server-2
http://www.podtech.net/home/5339/virtualize-in-minutes-with-vmware-esxi
Special thanks to John Troyer, master of the VMware VMTN blog and Roundtable Podcasts, for getting me in touch with Amir.
