ESXi 6.7.0-U3 Unable to create Datastore on SSD RAID1

[DemStones]

Hi All
I'm not a guru on VM but I am having an issue creating an DS on RAID1 as in it will not let me.  RAID5 is fine though.  This is the set up...

We have our new server as follows

Dell PowerEdge R540

Dual Xeon Silver 4210 processors

64Gb RAM

2 x 200GB SSD in RAID 1 to cater for the MS2019

3 x 600GB HDD in RAID 5 for the user and shared data

1 x 600GB HDD hot spare for RAID 5

Installed VMWare ESXi 6.7 on a USB Flash Drive.

Set up the two virtual drives in the Dell PERC H730P RAID Controller and initialised.

Booted into ESXi and I can see both virtual drives however, the RAID 1 SSD will not let me configure as a Datastore.  RAID 5 HDD is fine and I have created a test MS2019 VM on it.

I have tried a Full Disk and a Custom option in creating the DS but it does not allow me to select the 178GB VMFS

Have any of you come across this issue before?  I have read up various articles and carried out their suggestions like partedUtil, getptbl and MTU 1500 settings etc. to no avail.

I have attached 5 screenshots.

I would be interested in your views.  I set up the server on my test server with no issues but the I wasn’t running two Virtual Disks and didn’t encounter this problem.  Apparently this problem is also documented with previous versions of ESXi.  Our current server is also set up with VMWare on ESXi 5 but not running two VDs.

Many thanks in advance.

Duncan

[berndweyand]

Something went wrong: you have installedd esxi on the ssd, not flash.

the esxi-installation put a datastore on this drive, so this drive is full

[DemStones]

Thanks for your reply.  It would seem that way but ESXi is definitely on the 16GB USB Flash drive.  If I unplug the USB it will not boot.  Also, on previous installations I have put ESXi directly onto the RAID 5 or 10 and it all seems okay.  The SSD drives are 200GB each in RAID1 and ESXI definitely doesn't take up that amount of space so how would that use fill up the SSDs then?  Very confusing to say the least.

I also did a test by not configuring the SSDs as Virtual Disks and only the HDDs on RAID5 on the PERC and installing ESXi once again to the USB Flash and it all worked no problem.  It didn't show any of the data on the RAID5 as it does on the RAID1 when I configured it.

Very strange!

[berndweyand]

hmm - if you are absolutely sure that the flash drive contains the partitions that esxi needs then just erase the raid1 - then you should be able to put a datastore on it

[DemStones]

I tried that, I reinitialised the SSD Virtual Disk and the same thing happened.  I even deleted the SSD VD and built it again but no change.

[berndweyand]

but the storage device is visible in host client? with no partitions on it?

what error message do you get when trying to create a datastore ?

[DemStones]

As per the attachments/screenshots, you can see that the storage is visible but when trying to create it will not allow me to select part or all of the drive so when I click NEXT it tells me to select the free space but then once again it doesn't allow me to.

Can you perhaps bypass the VD set up and Initialisation in the PERC RAID Controller and actually set it up from within ESXi?  I haven't done it this way before and there was some chat about it but perhaps this option is not available with the free version?

Thanks

[a_p_]

If you are sure that the data on the SSD RAID isn't needed, you may try to clear the partition table from the ESXi GUI, prior to creating a new datastore.

Steps: Storage --> Devices (Tab) --> select the SSD RAID --> Actions (Menu) --> Clear partition table

André

[DemStones]

Hi Andre

Thanks for the reply, I tried that to clear the partition table and it wouldn't allow me to do it.

Cheers

Duncan

[DemStones · Accepted solution]

Thanks to all advice guys, the problem has now been resolved.

It was down to clearing the partition tables but not from within the ESXi GUI.  When I was first setting up the server for a dry run I installed the ESXi onto the SSD RAID1 which is why you could see the partitions there in the screenshots.  When I subsequently installed ESXi onto the USB Flash Drive I deleted the SSD Virtual Disk, rebooted and created a new SSD VD which initialised and you could see it in the ESXi GUI but for some reason it still showed the ESXi partition table.  I was unable to delete it from within the GUI.  After various attempts of doing one thing and another as detailed in the previous posts, this morning I came in with a fresh head and within the PERC RAID Controller I once again deleted the VD and then noticed the CLEAR option.  I did this on each disk. rebooted and created the the SSD RAID1 and initialised it again.  I can now create my VM Datastore.

I assumed that the recreation, even with swapping the two drives in the bays and the re-initialising would clear everything on the drives including partitions.  So, because it was on the drive outside of ESXi control, ESXi was not able to delete it because effectively it didn't create it.  A bit of daft logic.

Thanks once again for your input guys.

Regards

Duncan