Trying to assign more than 8 vCPUs to your TrendMiner virtual appliance on ESXi and running into a hard limit? You’re not alone—this usually comes down to a few ESXi-specific settings and limitations.

Here are the main reasons you might be hitting that cap:

ESXi Licensing Limits

If you’re using the free version of VMware ESXi (vSphere Hypervisor), you’re limited to 8 vCPUs per VM. Upgrading to a paid vSphere license (e.g., Standard or Enterprise Plus) is required to go beyond this limit.

VM Hardware Compatibility

The virtual hardware version of your VM can also restrict the maximum number of vCPUs. Ensure that your VM is configured to use hardware compatibility version 7 or later.

You can do this by editing the VM settings or right-clicking the VM and selecting:

“Compatibility > Synchronize hardware compatibility with host”

More details are available in the VMware documentation.

Host CPU Capacity

Lastly, your physical host must have enough logical cores available. ESXi won’t allow you to assign more vCPUs than what the host hardware can support—especially if CPU overcommitment is not configured.

Ran into this limitation or solved it a different way? Feel free to share your experience—we’re all here to learn from each other!