Something to watch out for as older versions of ESX drop off the support list – 3.02 Update 1 is the oldest version of ESX you can install on the latest version of the Dell 2950.  Even the 2950 is likely to go away soon, so be prepared to step up to at least 3.5 if you want hardware support in the near future.

Another awesome preparation note is that in order to install a version of ESX previous to 3.5 on a server that has a SATA CD-ROM (most do these days) you’ll want an external USB CD-ROM drive handy…  and make sure to enable the USB mass storage device driver when it complains about not having any install media.