VMware Cloud Community
dtdionne
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Areca ARC-1120 (8 port PCI-X SATA Raid Controller)

Greetings,

The system is a Tyan S2882-D, Dual Processor, Dual Core Opteron based system with the Areca 1120 pci-x raid controller.

Does anyone know the steps I can take rendering the best possibe chance of getting this system fully functional with ESX 3?

Reply
0 Kudos
42 Replies
dtdionne
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Wow....did I need that, I just slept 22.5hrs straight. Not a first but under a fif (Dave Chappell is hilarious). Damn, and all that was real, I felt like a bobble head toy there for a little while.

Thanks again, so much Rumple and Paul...tomorrow should hold some promising progress thanks to you two...and I am also very thankful that my plight was, at the very least, able to give back some comic relief.

These boxes have the Tyan SMDC (IPMI on steroids) daughter cards and I've been playing around with that here for the last hour....it's pretty neat and quite nicely fills in that one tinny tiny gap in console access to ESX although I have not decided if I'm quite ready to brave an unsuppoted in-band agent install on the ESX server which I would only consider if the out-of-band console-over-lan doesnt work. The thought of marching back into that meeting with this one ~8k server and showing full post remote console access to the main hardware and then show access to 10 vm's each with full post remote console access plus all of the other features proving that with ESX and one entry-mid grade class server, you can replace an entire ~100k - 250k entry level data center that scales in ways that mimic PURE MAGIC.

Gives me goose bumps...

Reply
0 Kudos
_usr_local_dick
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Areca has just released drivers :smileygrin:

Very good news. I have used Areca cards from 2004 (created a custom Debian installer as well: ) and they have never let me down.

The performance, featureset, and reliability are one of the best I have ever seen.

I am now using Dell Poweredge servers, nice & cheap boxes, but their PERC controllers suck incredibly.

I can't wait to try out a new multi-terabyte set of ESX and Areca!

Reply
0 Kudos
tibyke
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

have you tried it out?

i just need to install esx(i) on an areca 1120 card.

any experience?

t

Reply
0 Kudos
ndemarco
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Installing the beta Areca drivers natively (esxupdatecd.zip) doesn't work for ESXi 3 v3.5 U2.

Adding the drivers after the ESXi Hypervisor has been installed hasn't worked for me. It's complex. You must install the CLI tools to remotely manage via the command line. Then, you have to do a Linux RPM which doesn't seem to be supported on Windows systems.

I've sent an email to Areca for support asking them if they are supporting the ESXi version.

Reply
0 Kudos
Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

Are you able to extract the driver from the RPM? If so, you could build a custom OEM.TGZ file and that should be sufficient to get the driver onto your ESXi install and to have it load it.

Reply
0 Kudos
ndemarco
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

I'm not a Linux expert by any means. I have the RPM but don't know how to extract from it. If I did, I still don't know how to use the command line tools to interact with the ESX Hypervisor. It seems you are saying I would modify the original ESXi ISO to include the driver natively. I'd need some pretty clear 1 2 3 steps to get it done.

Reply
0 Kudos
ndemarco
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Update: Actually, I do have the driver files. I'm not sure how to build an OEM.TGZ file and make it work though. I'll search for a couple of minutes. A point in the right direction would be quite helpful at midnight!

Thanks

Reply
0 Kudos
Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

Take a look at this thread for similar instructions. Best bet would be to get ESXi running from a USB flash drive. You can then create oem.tgz in a console session.

http://communities.vmware.com/click.jspa?searchID=-1&objectType=2&objectID=1018798

Reply
0 Kudos
ndemarco
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

The Areca driver is attached here. I have to figure out how to do the USB install and invoke the unsupported shell. If anyone wants to help me generate an OEM.TGZ, I won't fight them off!

This is going to have to wait a few days. If I do get the files completed, I will certainly make them available for anyone to DL (assuming this is not infringing on any copyrights or other restrictions).

Reply
0 Kudos
ndemarco
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

This stuff is sooooo cool. I have a 7a flight tomorrow. I've GOT to knock off for the night. Thx for the pointers. I suspect this will work quite well.

Nick

Reply
0 Kudos
ndemarco
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Areca ARC-1120 controller works using the instructions found in this post. It's installed on ESXi 3.5 U2 and running perfectly (so far).

Now, since I'm new to ESX-like products, I have to figure out how to get my MS Virtual Server and VMWare Server machines into ESX. So far, I'm having a lot of ambiguous trouble. Looks like it is time for another thread.

Thanks to all for the help getting it going. If I can assist, PM me or post a reply here so I see it.

Reply
0 Kudos
Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

Have you looked at VMware Converter for migrating the VMs?

Reply
0 Kudos
ndemarco
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Hi Dave,

I'm using all the free stuff ;-). I have Converter Standard. I've tried figuring out the CLIs but haven't gotten too far with the Windows CLIs or the CLI Appliance.

From what I read, with the free Converter, I must convert to an appliance, then import the appliance into ESXi.

I haven't been able to get your instructions (from another post I can't find at the moment) to change a Server machine into an ESX machine.

Thanks,

Nick

Reply
0 Kudos
Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

You can install an agent onto the server that you want to convert and then do a hot clone . But I prefer the MOA tool as I can cold clone a host (physical or virtual).

Reply
0 Kudos
ndemarco
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Pardon my ignorance. Is the agent different than the Convert tool?

What's the MOA tool?

I'll try either or both of those. I also had VM Server on the hardware, so I'm removing that since a VM inside a VM probably isn't the best idea.

Thanks.

Reply
0 Kudos
Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

The agent is part of the converter install. If you've just moving current VMs to an ESXi host, then you don't need to install that portion (if you do a custom Converter install). You would install the agent on a physical box if you wanted to perform a hot clone.

MOA is a BartPE extension. Basically you'll boot up the server from CD and then run VMware Converter. The nice thing about it is that it gives you the ablitiy to do a cold clone of the server you wish to migrate.

Reply
0 Kudos
nickcheng
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Do you have any progress on installation Areca driver?

Actually I extract the arcmsr.o from the driver CD and build the oem.tgz file.

And copy this file into /vmfs/volumes/Hypervisor1 and /vmfs/volumes/Hypervisor2.

But I still fail to install it.

I ever do /vmkload_mod /mod/arcmsr.o but it shows the driver is not properly compiled with VMkernel.

But actually this driver is applicable to ESX 3.5.

It is really weird.

Reply
0 Kudos
ndemarco
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

I have the ARECA driver ARCMSR.o working almost perfectly within ESXi 3.5. I attached the exact file earlier in this post. The OEM.TGZ file was easy to build following the instructions earlier in this post also.

Were you able to manually load the arcmsr.o file? Of course, it will not survive a reboot.

What model of areca card are you using (ARC-11xx)? Try DLing the attachment from my post a couple of posts up on this thread.

Best regards,

Nick

Reply
0 Kudos
ndemarco
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Here's the driver again in a ZIP file to avoid corruption. Try unzipping it and loading it manually.

Carefully follow the instructions earlier in the post. A couple of the steps are a little "shortcutted" meaning you can't type exactly what is written. You must think it through. Such is free support!:8}

Reply
0 Kudos