Install Esxi Software Raid For Mac
You should be looking at Desktop virtualization (VMware Horizon View) and not server virtualization (VMware ESXi & vCenter)..
Running Virtual desktops on desktops for Dev is a totally different matter from running them in production mode.
The VMware ESX product does come with its own hardware compatibility list or HCL, as well as number of specific minimum hardware requirements which are significant in homelab environments or you are using 'nested ESX'. Nested ESX is where you use one virtualization layer (VMware Workstation on PC, or VMware Fusion on the Mac) to run ESX inside. By having ESXi installed on a Mac Pro, you are able to install OS X virtual machines without requiring the VMware Unlocker workaround. Additionally, with four PCI-e slots, you could add things like Fibre Channel HBAs, multi-port NICs, USB 3.0 cards, etc. The downside to using a Mac Pro 1,1 or 2,1 today, though, is its power usage and heat output. ESXi does not support software RAID, but only 'real' hardware RAID. With hardware RAID you can configure different logical volumes on different disk types, create VMFS datastores on them, and then decide on a per VM basis where to store the virtual disks. You can even have multiple virtual disks per VM and store each one on a different datastore.
Soundx smi-1458 manual. .....taken from http://www.brianmadden.com/opinion/Why-Apple-doesnt-need-to-worry-about-virtualization-of-Mac-OS-X
Install Esxi Software Raid For Mac Download
For those who want the Mac OS X to be able to run in a VM, from a pure technical standpoint, that's possible today. (You just basically hackintosh OS X into a VM.) And actually from a legal standpoint, it appears that it's also ok to run OS X in a VM as long as the VM host is running on Apple-branded hardware. There's even talk that the next version of VMware vSphere will officially support OS X (which we assume is only legal if vSphere was running on Apple hardware).
I'm looking into the possibility of virtualizing ten physical OS X Servers (10.6.8) and two Windows servers (Server 2003) on two beefy Mac Pro systems running ESX 5.1 Enterprise. Mostly web servers and database servers (MySQL, FileMaker, MS SQL Server, Apache). Not super busy as far as IO is concerned.. OS X EULA requires OS X be virtualized only on Apple hardware and ESX is certified by VMWare to run on those Mac Pros. I need to be compliant in my environment - I already know it's possible to get OS X guests running on non-Apple hardware.
I've been looking at external RAID5 Thunderbolt storage options for the hosts - specifically the Promise Pegasus R6. Has anyone even tested ESX(i) on Mac Pros with Thunderbolt storage? I've read ESX sees Thunderbolt as another PCIe slot essentially so, it'd be akin to having a RAID card in the machine connected to an external storage chassis.
I'm trying to do this 'on the cheap' for reason's I'd rather not get into, but it essentially will buy us time to migrate software/services from OS X Server to hosted solutions or other software platforms that can be run on Linux/Windows.
Any insight offered would be appreciated - VMWare newbie here.