Hi,
I've been looking for a solution to that problem for some days and i hope that someone could helpe me.
I'm in esx4 (vSphere) and when i activate in the bios the function Intel vt-d to get the functionnality of "passthrough pci device" (vmdirectIO) of esx4 the Datastore in the storage which is on a adaptec 3805 card raid (in Raid5EE mode) disapear. However, the device is still there, listed in the storage decive list and it shows me the vmfs partition but i can't use it.
There is no error (or changes ) in th vmkernel, message, or vmfs logs.
Esx find my device, the partition but doesn't want to mount it so i can use it as a Datastore.
I've tried to do a rescan or some other possibilities (like mounting it by hand) like other people on the web told me to do, but nothing changes.
I've tried to create a new Datastore on the device, it appears, i can create one or two folders, but if i try to create a virtual machin on it, it desapears or it hangs and send me that the Datastore is not valid (in shell, the permalink point on nothing after that...).
It desapears too after a reboot of the server.
BUT, if i go in "advanced settings" and i activate the noIOMMU option (set to disabled) after the reboot, my Datastore comes back and i can use it very well (but i haven't got the passthrough functionnalities...)
It seems to me that i've got the good harware (and certiffied) for vmware esx4 (the hardare is listed after...) and i don't want to access my raild volume from a virtual machin but as a storage for esx4 (most of people who got problems with raid cards, that i heard, wanted to connect their volume directly to the virtual machine. It's not the case here)
My Hardware :
1)Motherboard supermicro : X8DTH-iF
2) Processors : 2x Intel Xeon E5530
3) the esx4 système is on a WD velociraptor 74GB in ahci mode ( i use it as well like a Datastore for my ISOS and i've got no problems at all with it, it shows everytime with every config and work very well)
4) Raid card : adaptec 3805 with 4 disks 500GB for a RAID5EE volume that i use as a Datastore for my virtual machine (one "big (1000Go)" vmfs partition ).
It seems me, that this hardware is compatible with Intel VT ( and vt-d) in 64bits and for vmware esx4 (i have found every of this components on the site)
Here's my question : What can i do to make it worked whith the passthroug functionnalities and still get my Datastore working on my raid volume ?
Why my Datastore disapear ? Is there a way to see where and why (and how) the vmfs partition is mounted when passthrough is disabled and maybe see if an error occurs when it's enabled ? Is there a way to tell esx4 to disable de passthrought functionalites for this device (the adaptec 3805) only, like that i could use the passthought for the other device but not this one ? etc...
Thanks to all the people who could help me to solve that big problem (i need the passthrough and the Datastore to use my esx like i wanted to do)
Thanks too to have the patience to read me to the end and to take some time to help me.
See you soon, I hope.
Angle
