In the world of enterprise IT, few hardware combinations have achieved the legendary status of the HP Proliant DL360 Gen9 running VMware ESXi. For years, this 1U rack server served as the workhorse for virtualization environments ranging from small businesses to massive data centers.

Recommend option 3 or 4. Cannot sign off on option 1 or 2 for production.

: Stay on ESXi 7.0 Update 3 for production use. If you need vSphere 8.0, it is time to look at the ProLiant Gen10 or Gen11 series for official support. Upgrading a HPE ProLiant DL360 Gen9 from Version 7 to 8

Mark leaned back. The refurbished Gen9s were a bargain—$800 each instead of $5,000. The CFO had practically hugged him. But now, reality.

A VMware community post from a user named “StorageGuy_42”: “Gen9 + ESXi 8 = random PSODs (purple screens of death) during high queue depth. Found the issue? Out-of-tree driver for the Smart Array P440ar. VMware won’t backport. HP won’t write a new one. Dead end.”