How to configure RAID controller and VMware...Help?

[Mike805702]

I have a workstation tower that im using a "proof of concept".

Asus X99 E Motherboard

Intel i7 6800k CPU

64GB Memory

2 1TB SSDs

16GB thumbdrive

3ware 9750 24i-4e RAID Controller

I have installed ESXi 6.7.0 host on the thumbdrive.

Now i would like to use the 2 SSD's on the RAID controller to create a single large 1TB RAID 1 Storage space for the VM's, Datastore's etc <- This is where im having trouble.

I found, what i think is the correct drives for the RAID controller, here:

https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/details?downloadGroup=DT-ESXI67-AVAGO-LSI-MR3-77071100-1OEM&produ...

I've successfully installed them using Putty. The installation 'seemed' to have worked and restarted the Host. In the Manage > Hardware i can see my 9750 controller show up. (See Capture1.jpg).

But in the Storage menu, i do not see the controller or the 2 SSD's. Im not sure what im missing on how to get this to work properly. This is the first time im attempting to create a RAID on VM Host.

Its also worth mentioning, that when the machine starts up, the controller is recognized, and lists the disks connected to it. However, it does say "3ware BIOS not installed" - Unfortunately im not sure how to get those installed either, when i dont have a typical OS to use.

I've used these cards before and got the BIOS installed etc via windows - but not sure how to do so through console session, or if those 3ware BIOS are necessary at all.

anyone have ides/experience on how to get this working?

thanks,

Mike

[IRIX201110141]

Yes your controller registered to the pci bus and thats why you see it on the list of all devices or by using lspci but right now you havent installed the right device driver.  If you have a driver the devices are identify by its PCIIDs and will be initialized. If this happends you can see it under Storage Adapters.

I doubt you havent install the right driver because when using a favorite searchengine it shows that this device was supportet around ESX 4.x and maybe in the early 5.x versions.

Regards,

Joerg

[daphnissov]

If this is just a proof-of-concept, why are you bothering with a RAID controller to begin with?

[wila]

Hi,

My guess would be that you first have to get that 3ware BIOS to load to start with, which by itself might involve things like moving the RAID card to another PCIe slot.

Once you can get into the RAID firmware you can configure the RAID set based on those 2 SSD's.

However I agree with Daphnissov, why bother?

Mucking around with old drivers and wasting time on getting this to work isn't very likely going to be very helpful knowledge to learn.

You can run vSphere as a virtual machine within VMware Workstation and get your handson experience that way.

It is possible to run guests inside the vSphere virtual machine, so you can do a pretty good test that way.

Alternatively you can conntect those SSD's directly to the motherboard and use them as 2 SATA based datastore's.

--

Wil