Windows 7: ESXI on old workstation

Hi there
I have an old workstation lying around and thought this might just be the type of machine to run ESXI on it with a few Virtual machines on its data store.

I've seen and worked with ESXi in the workplace and it's great but its used on real enterprise server class machines.

I like the idea of running a tiny OS so the Virtual machines can get nearly all the hosts performance.

It seems a pity to have to load an OS such as Windows 7 or Windows 2008 server just to get access to some virtual machines.

However most of the ESXi documentation seems to say you need SERVER class machines and things like SATA disks and most "Retail type" NIC cards won't work.


Has anybody got ESXi to work on a "typical user Workstation".

Workstation has 4GB RAM with 4 X 1TB Sata disks and Quad CPU. I can up the RAM to 8GB which should be plenty for my VM's. Mobo is a typical Gigabyte one --

Accessing the VM's via another machine isn't a problem as I want to use the machine as a server anyway but I don't want to have to go out and buy a fully blown server class of machine.

Main problem seems to be that ESXi is fairly restrictive in hardware compatability - especially with NIC cards, Disk drives and Motherboards.

Cheers
jimbo