SR-IOV support

Question

I need to do some SR-IOV work. I have a dell Workstation T7500 with an official Mfg Date of 09/16/2011. Does this have BIOS that supports SR-IOV? ( ... I think the answer is no)

What Dell systems do support SR-IOV?

speedstep · Accepted Answer

The T7500 is not a VM server. INTEL VT-d and VT-x support depends on more than just the bios.

The T7500 has the Intel 5520 chipset and therefore does NOT Support Intel VT with Directed I/O

There are two types of virtualization:

Intel® Virtualization Technology (Intel® VT)

Improves the fundamental flexibility and robustness of traditional software-based virtualization solutions by accelerating key functions of the virtualized platform, including:

Speeding up the transfer of platform control between the guest operating systems (OSs) and the virtual machine manager (VMM)/hypervisor
Enabling the VMM to uniquely assign I/O devices to guest OSs
Optimizing the network for virtualization with adapter-based acceleration

Intel® Virtualization Technology (Intel® VT) for Directed I/O (Intel® VT-d)

Provides additional performance, security and flexibility by providing the VMM with the following capabilities:

I/O device assignment
DMA remapping
Interrupt remapping
Reliability

Intel® Desktop Boards require the following components to support Intel VT or Intel VT-d:

Intel® Processor that supports Intel VT
BIOS with Intel VT or VT-d support (found on the Security menu in BIOS setup)
A third party VMM (virtual machine manager) may also be required

To see if your processor supports Intel VT, refer to Does my processor support Intel® Virtualization Technology?

The following Intel® Desktop Chipsets support Intel VT with Directed I/O:

Chipset	Desktop Board
X79	DX79SI, DX79SR, DX79TO
H77, Q77, Z77	DH77DF, DH77EB, DH77KC, DQ77CP, DQ77KB, DQ77MK, DZ77BH-55K, DZ77GA-70K, DZ77RE-75K, DZ77SL-50K
B75, Z75	DB75EN, DZ75ML-45K
Q67	DQ67EP, DQ67OW, DQ67SW
H61	DH61AGL
Q57	DQ57TM, DQ57TML
Q45	DQ45CB, DQ45EK
Q35	DQ35JO, DQ35MP

Note

A processor with Intel VT does not guarantee that virtualization will work on your system. Intel VT requires a computer system with a chipset, BIOS, enabling software and/or operating system, device drivers, and applications designed for this feature.

If your BIOS includes a setting to enable or disable support for Intel VT, make sure it is enabled. For Intel® Desktop Boards, enter the BIOS by pressing the F2 key as the system starts.

ersatzs · Answer

In that case, the BIOS is confusing, because it provides options for me to enable Virtualization Technology and Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O. I suggest the system would be much improved if the BIOS presented a message stating that the technology is not available on the system instead of allowing the user to think that the feature is enabled.

Thanks much for the detailed reply.

Locked Topics – Desktops General

SR-IOV support

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