In theory, it should work perfectly.

Some old, old drives had a problem where the spindle wouldn’t spin, a phenomenon known as “stiction.” Drives made in the last – maybe – 15 years seem to be immune.

One other remotely possible issue would be “bit rot.” That’s where the magnetic polarity of a single bit could change over time, often being influenced by neighboring bits.

I’ve got four HPs clustered for VMware vSAN and three more little systems – 2 HPs and a Dell – clustered as a VMware “remote site” to my PowerEdge primary site.

After you install ESXi to the 256GB SSD, there may or may not be any space left over for the Installer to create a datastore. In other words, the SSD is small enough that ESXi may take the whole thing for itself, and not give you any usable space for VMs.

You’ll have to install and see.

I have the four-port version of this hub in a box o’switches, somewhere in a closet.

In no particular order:

1. Synology DS3615xs (12 bays, 25GbE fibre)
2. Synology RS1619xs+ w/expansion unit (16 bays, 25GbE fibre)
3. Synology DS1010+ w/expansion unit (10 bays)
4. Synology DS218+ (2 bays)
5. Synology DS220+ (2 bays)
6. Synology DS210j (2 bays)
7. TrueNAS system built into Jonsbo case, Intel Core i3-8100, 64GB RAM. Just completed. (5 drives, 10GbE)

Postage stamps for many years starting as a kid. Steamship postcards, then trilobites and minerals for some years as an adult.