DELL PERC S100/S300 useless? Another RAID Controller?

[ShuNaik]

I'm new to ESXi so pardon my amateurism.

I'm working on a Dell PowerEdge T110 II server with PERC S100/S300 controller. Previous tech was using the 3 drives as individual drive per virtual machine but I want to use 4 new 2TB drives as RAID 10 instead (after dumping all VMs to a standalone drive temporarily). When I started the setup for ESXi, I realized that why other tech used it as individual drive because even after creating RAID, ESXi reads them as separate drives instead of RAID. I did some search and I assume that this PERC controller is not compatible with ESXi and would buy one aftermarket. I went to ESXi Compatibility list and leaning towards buying Adaptec ASR-3405 128MB 4-Port PCI-E RAID Controller. Does it make sense? Need opinion!!

Thanks in advance

[cykVM]

Hi,

are you sure it's a Perc 10?

Can't find any 10 model in this list: http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/04/campaigns/dell-raid-controllers

The only model I know of are either old Perc 5/i or 6/i ones and the newer Perc Hxxx ones.

From above list all models which have a "Software RAID" or "HBA ..." in 'RAID support' column are pretty useless for VMWare.

VMWare supports only hardware RAID and the controller should have a battery supported cache (BBU) or Flash Backed Cache

cykVM

[cykVM]

The Adaptec 3405 seems to be at least compatible up to the latest VMWare 6.0 and natively supported: VMware Compatibility Guide: I/O Device Search

But check the community here because I read of several issues with some Adaptec controllers, especially in conjunction with the management/monitoring software for adaptec controllers in VMWare.

[ShuNaik]

Any other inexpensive PCIe RAID Controller card, fully compatible with ESXi 5.5 with 4 SATA HDDs / RAID 10 support ???

Thanks

[nickirwin99]

Sorry, The PERC S100/S300 is a software RAID card only, as such vSphere will only see the individual drives.

You would need a hardware RAID card (such as a H700, 710 or 730) for vSphere to "see" and use  the RAID container

[ShuNaik]

performance wise, would LSI be better or Dell's PERC H710?

[cykVM]

In fact the PERC H710 is a DELL branded LSI SAS 2208. You may refer to this list for example: LSI RAID Controller - HBA Equivalency Mapping | ServeTheHome and ServeThe.Biz Forums

I think the cheapest to get used/refurbished ones are the IBM ServeRAID. Don't forget to order one with a BBU or Flash Cache.

[ShuNaik]

I'm leaning more towards Perc H710 controller.

Thanks all for your suggestions and help