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Loenhoet
Contributor
Contributor

Areca drivers (beta) - Disk not recognized

Hi,

I recently upgraded my machine from VirtualServer 2 to

ESXi4. The RAID-controller was unsupported (not on the HCL-list). After a few

days, Areca released a beta-driver for the controller. I followed the attached

guidelines, and the device was recognized (under Storage Devices). However, the

created disk is not recognized. Did I miss something? Or any suggestions? The

RAID-volume is larger than 2 Gb, which is unsupported in ESXi, but if that was

the problem, the disk should be recognized. I have no clue.

My system specs:

  • Asus NCCH-DL,82875P (LAN, SATA-RAID,PCI-X)

  • 2x Intel Xeon 2.8GHz (604, Single, 2.8GHz, 1MB, 4x200MHz FSB, Boxed)

  • 4x 512MB Kingston Memory (PC-3200)

  • Areca ARC-1110 (4x SATA300 RAID, XOR, 128MB, PCI-X)

  • 4x Samsung Spinpoint F1 DT HD753LJ, 750GB SATA-300, 32MB, 7200rpm

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

If you go to Configuration \ Storage Adapters and select the Areca controller do you see the LUN? I'm not sure if you can do it with the Areca, but with some controllers you can create multiple arrays on the same disks so you would be use all the space on the drivers but still have arrays smaller than 2 TB - 512 B.

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Loenhoet
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for your help. In Configuration / Storage Adapters, the Areca Controller does not reveal enything:

vmhba1

Model: ARC-1110 4-Port PCI-X to DATA RAID Controller

Targets: 0 Devices: 0 Paths: 0

I did a rescan several times, but this did not help.

Note: Maybe the readme of the driver might be handy: ftp://ftp.areca.com.tw/RaidCards/AP_Drivers/VMware/ESX_4/Beta/Build90714/ (which is the latest online build)

I'll try ESX4 later on, see if that works

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Loenhoet
Contributor
Contributor

SOLVED :smileygrin:

An upgrade of the Firmware (from v1.44 to v1.46) did the trick

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vmware_mike
Contributor
Contributor

How did you upgrade the firmware I have the ARC-1220 and the only way I see to upgrade the firmware is to have the whole suite loaded that has the web interface. Did you have to install it into a windows PC or something?

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Loenhoet
Contributor
Contributor

I was lucky to have the original hard disk (with Windows Server 2008). So, yew, I've used the web interface to upgrade the firmware. Perhaps you can use the DosFlash utility from the Areca-site. I have no experience with that however.

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