I just received my Minisforum MS-A2 from Amazon last week. After installing 96GB of memory, (it can handle up to 128GB), a 4TB NMVE drive and 2  SFP ethernet modules, I was easily able to install ESXI 8.0.3 with the only problem being the VMWare did not recognize the TPM. This was so easy it almost isn’t worth writing about it other then to point out how much power you get from these little machine. The entire setup was about $1,300. With that I have the power to run enough servers to accommodate a small business. A second machine setup the same way will fit in a 3d printed rack mount and with a Synology NAS connected with ISCSI, holding your VM’s, you really can get rid of all your expensive HP and Dell server.

This setup, with the Synology NAS offers solid redundancy, a great backup solution, and more power the most people will ever need.

[Update]

I install another 1TB NVME drive and used memory tiering, which in now available in ESXI 8.0.3. Memory tiering allows VMWare to use a portion of the 1TB NVME drive as slower RAM. You can add between 25% and 400% more RAM this way. The memory tiering function will automatically shift off slower processes to the slower RAM.

It is very easy to configure memory tiering. SSH into you ESXI host and issue the following commands.

esxcli system settings kernel set -s MemoryTiering -v TRUE
esxcli storage core path list
esxcli system tierdevice create -d /vmfs/devices/disks/t10.NVMe____CT1000P310SSD8__________________________4BE9F64F0175A000
esxcli system settings advanced set -o /Mem/TierNvmePct -i 200

Replace the blue type with your storage device that you will find from the prior command. Be careful not to pick the wrong NVME device, this command will repartition the drive. Replace the red type with the percentage of memory you want to add. In this case I increase my memory by 200 percent.