Call "HostDatastoreSystem.CreateVmfsDatastore" for object "datastoreSystem-66" on vCenter "IP x.x.x.x" failed

[SebastianK8]

Hi Community,

i ran into a problem with Netapp iSCSI Targets on vSphere 6U2.
I have installed the following systems:

- Two Supermicro Server, complete vSphere 6 certified
- Two Netgear 24-port 10Gb / s switches
- A Netapp E2760

Both servers have the latest vSphere version 6, there is one vCSA instance installed.

These two hosts are additionally used as StorMagic Hosts to provide HA Storage for critical VMs. The iSCSI connection of StorMagic targets (11TB SATA RAID 1TB SSD RAID) works without problems (own vlan, multiple target IP addresses enabled jumbo frames on vmkernel + vswitch and physical switch ports).
The NetApp ist configured with 3 iSCSI Targets (15TB; 12 TB and 11 TB all SAS drives). The Targets are configured with four IP addresses (same subnet as the StorMagic iSCSI Target) for multipathing and failover.

The iSCSI initiator recognizes the targets in the storage devices, i can see them in the device list with capacity and device name, but adding a datastore does not work.
I have read several VMware KB article on the subject and also the odd workaround with fdisk ...... but fdisk unfortunately does not work.
Tried to label the targets with partedUtil with a new partition label  (msdos and gpt), doesn´t work.

The NetApp itself seems to work,  a fourth volume is configured to a Windows Server Backup (Veeam) and usable.
Has anyone any idea how to get the targets in vSphere as a datastore? I hope the Post also lands in the correct range.

Thank you in advance

Sebastian

[30hotham]

I just had this issue and found that it was caused by incomplete jumbo frames config. I reduced my iSCSI vmk port and dedicated iSCSI vSwitch back down to MTU1500 and it worked. If jumbo frames aren't enabled the whole way through (vmk - vSwitch - interconnects - physical switches - iSCSI target) then fragmentation will take place.

I haven't yet resolved my issue but I presume there's a physical switch config issue which my network guy will need to investigate.

After taking a quick look it seems as though I can't enable jumbo frames per VLAN, port channel or port on a typical Cisco 2960s, it's a system wide change ('system mtu jumbo') which I don't want to make. I may need to stick with MTU1500.