This report covers the current availability status, download locations, critical considerations regarding the HPE/Vmware partnership split, and installation best practices.
By: Virtualization Insights Team
In the world of enterprise virtualization, the combination of VMware vSphere and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) server hardware is a gold standard. However, running a generic VMware ISO on HPE ProLiant servers is like putting regular fuel in a race car—it works, but you are missing out on optimized performance, drivers, and firmware management.
If you have searched for the phrase “vmware esxi 70 update 3 hpe customized iso image download top” , you are likely an IT administrator looking for the most stable, high-performance, and secure hypervisor for your HPE environment. You want the “top” build—not just the latest, but the most reliable. This report covers the current availability status, download
This article provides a definitive guide to finding, downloading, validating, and installing the VMware ESXi 7.0 Update 3 HPE Customized ISO. We will cover why you need the custom image, where to find the top official sources, and how to avoid common pitfalls.
The generic VMware ESXi ISO includes broad drivers. The HPE Customized ISO includes HPE-specific async drivers for:
Before clicking any download link, you must understand why HPE spends thousands of engineering hours creating these custom images. The Ultimate Guide to VMware ESXi 7
There are two primary methods to obtain the image, but Method A is the recommended path for HPE hardware.
If you’re running HPE ProLiant servers, you already know: never run vanilla VMware ESXi. The HPE customized image includes critical drivers (smartpqi, i40en, nmlx5_core), management agents, and the all-important HPE Add-on for vLCM.
With ESXi 7.0 Update 3 still being a stable production workhorse, finding the correct HPE ISO can be surprisingly tricky—especially after Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware. Let me walk you through exactly where to get it. HPE Smart Array Controllers (e.g.
Run on the ISO:
sha256sum VMware-ESXi-7.0.3-*-HPE-*.iso
Compare against the SHA256 listed on HPE’s download page.
This is the gold standard. HPE hosts the ISO directly on their support portal.