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pcfarrartt
Contributor
Contributor

Controller is VMware certified for ESXi release 6.7 U2 issue

Since updating to 6.7 U2 I'm getting warnings in VSAN health that my controller is not certified for the ESXi release.

intel Corporation DC P3600 AIC

Avago (LSI) PERC H730P Mini

The weird thing is on the certified esxi releases column it actually says "ESXi 6.7 U2 (vSAN 6.7 Update 2)"

Is this safe to ignore?

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IRIX201110141
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vSAN certified means a combination of Driver and Firmware. If its a 10 digit version string it has to match the first 11 digits of course Smiley Wink

Also... the Perc H730P is not the best choice... even if you change the mode from RAID to Pass-through. The cheap HBA330+, not the old H330, is the better one when speaking about SDS like vSAN.

Regards

Joerg

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TheBobkin
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Hello pcfarrartt​,

"Since updating to 6.7 U2 I'm getting warnings in VSAN health"

Potentially if you upgraded from an old enough version these health checks were not even in the version you were on before, but more likely is that the patch you used to update updated your controller driver but you did not apply the necessary firmware updates so that these pair with the new driver as per the vSAN HCL. Another common issue is people using ESXi-specific images which update their controller to ESXi-HCL latest of a driver which is not necessarily going to be on the vSAN-HCL for this device.

Anyway, the health check should state which version of driver is supported and which you are on - note the recommended driver in this check is generally that which is compatible with the firmware in use (if detectable) so do reference the vSAN-HCL entry for any devices triggering the warning and validate whether you need to a) update firmware to match driver b) downgrade driver to match firmware or c) change both as neither on the vSAN-HCL for this device.

I had a quick look and I cannot see any current listings (and thus driver+firmware specified) for any variant of H730 on vSAN 6.7 U2 - where did you see otherwise before upgrading?

e.g. VMware Compatibility Guide - I/O Device Search

Bob

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gsmitheidw
Contributor
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I'm getting the same issue, I have a 4 node Dell R730xd cluster all flash and H730 PERC card with VSAN running ESXi 6.7 U1 on 3 nodes for Horizon View use.

Node 2 seems to have updated to U2 itself.  I'm not entirely sure how, I had some errors during a routine patch update on that node and it failed to enter maintenance mode

correctly and hung which may have triggered something unusual.

I'll probably just re-install the node from scratch with 6.7 U1 and re-apply the host profile, probably less hassle than opening a ticket with VMware.

I really regret getting the H730 card - I would have liked to have RAID1 on 2 disks with the perc and run the rest in pass-thru, but sadly that's not a recommended config.

Ideally spec'ing out the cluster again I would choose a M.2 BOSS controller card for ESXi itself on each host and use HBA330 cards for VSAN.

I might still swap them out but that may be costly.

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TheBobkin
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Hello pcfarrartt gsmitheidw​,

Unfortunately there is currently no HCL-listed driver/firmware combination for H730P (and a number of other controllers) on vSAN 6.7 U2 - this is something we are actively working on with the relevant vendor-partners.

"Node 2 seems to have updated to U2 itself."

Hosts don't update themselves, maybe it had a remediation staged from VUM (or some other partially-automated update workflow).

"I'll probably just re-install the node from scratch with 6.7 U1 and re-apply the host profile, probably less hassle than opening a ticket with VMware."

Due to the points noted above, this is likely what vSAN GSS would advise you to do anyway - if the 6.7 U1 installation is still configured in altbootbank (easily checked using # cat /altbootbank/boot.cfg), it should just be a case of rebooting and using Shift+R.

VMware Knowledge Base

"I really regret getting the H730 card - I would have liked to have RAID1 on 2 disks with the perc and run the rest in pass-thru, but sadly that's not a recommended config."

Not just a not recommended configuration, but an unsupported one - however this is not something specific to this card:

VMware Knowledge Base

"Ideally spec'ing out the cluster again I would choose a M.2 BOSS controller card for ESXi itself on each host and use HBA330 cards for VSAN."

I agree this would be better, that being said though BOSS is pretty young and driver/firmware look to still be a bit twitchy.

Bob

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pcfarrartt
Contributor
Contributor

Even though the H730 is not certified yet for vSAN 6.7 U2 it's been working fine on all my Dell R730xd servers....

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nrsc0202
Contributor
Contributor

We're seeing the same exact issue since upgrading to 6.7 U2 with a different model Avago LSI card. Everything seems to be running fine, but I created a ticket with VMware anyways. I'll report back with any findings.

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EricRS96
Contributor
Contributor

I have the same issue too. Its compatible with ESXi 6.7 U2, but after searching, vsan doesn't support it!  :smileyplain:

https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/pdf/vi_vsan_guide.pdf

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nrsc0202
Contributor
Contributor

According to the vSAN support team, the compatibility group is still working on recertifying controllers for 6.7 U2. There is currently no ETA for completion.

Until VMware finishes recertiying these controllers, you are running in a unsupported configuration, for those concerned about support.

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Drewtech
Contributor
Contributor

It Looks like the h730(p)s have all been added to the vSAN HCL now for 6.7 U2.  I've been checking every couple of days or so and they were on there this morning.

VMware Compatibility Guide - vsan