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anthonyhelmey
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

ESXi installed. Can't determine Raid Volumes

Hello,

I have just installed ESXi 6.0. My server has 3 RAID 1 volumes of 2 disks each. When trying to create a datastore, I am unable to tell which disk belongs to which volume. I would like to create 3 datastores, each on its own RAID volume. Here is the picture of what I am seeing. I would imagine 0 and 1 to be a Volume. Likewise 2, 3. Etc...

Capture.PNG

I was hoping someone could tell me which ones are the RAID volumes.

10 Replies
joshopper
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Are you sure you configured the RAID on the server correctly or consider checking whether or not your RAID card is on the HCL. If you had 3 RAID 1 volumes you should only see three possibilities.

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anthonyhelmey
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Yes. This is Intel on board RAID rather than an add-in card. That's exactly what I would expect. But I created and verified the RAID volumes before exiting the Ctrl+I utility.

20160322_150422_resized.jpg

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anthonyhelmey
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

If this is any help. 4 of 6 disks get the error Call "HostDatastoreSystem.QueryVmfsDatastoreCreateOptions" for object "ha-datastoresystem" on ESXi "xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx" failed when trying to create a datastore. But all of these disks were wiped when they were added to the RAID volume.

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hussainbte
Expert
Expert

Kindly Check HCL and make sure the RAID controller is supported.

If you can share the make and model of card and server you are using.

Have your tried re configuring RAID? may be for testing purpose use RAID 0 and check.

If you found my answers useful please consider marking them as Correct OR Helpful Regards, Hussain https://virtualcubes.wordpress.com/
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JarryG
Expert
Expert

If ESXi can not see raid-volumes (and can see individual disks instead) it is software-/bios-/fake-raid you have. This is not supported by ESXi, and you can not use such a "raid-array" for datastore. At least not directly...

_____________________________________________ If you found my answer useful please do *not* mark it as "correct" or "helpful". It is hard to pretend being noob with all those points! :winking_face:
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hussainbte
Expert
Expert

JarryG

Do we have any documentation stating ESXi does not support fakeRAID

If you found my answers useful please consider marking them as Correct OR Helpful Regards, Hussain https://virtualcubes.wordpress.com/
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JarryG
Expert
Expert

This topic has been discussed here many times (might easily be the most frequently asked question), I do not understand what documentation do you want to see. Take it simply as fact. We have HCL, with list of hardware that does work. You will not find single fake-/bios-/software-raid controller there. And it is for very good reasons.

Fake-raid controllers need OS-support, some kind of "driver", and there is none for ESXi. Moreover, fake-raid controllers are usually very simple, lacking any on-board cache and cpu. Even if you made them work with ESXi, you would get trully terrible performance...

_____________________________________________ If you found my answer useful please do *not* mark it as "correct" or "helpful". It is hard to pretend being noob with all those points! :winking_face:
anthonyhelmey
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Intel On-board RAID.

I have, several times. I will check if its supported.

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anthonyhelmey
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thats what I was looking for.

Thank you

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