How do I find my SSD?

[dbuchanan7]

Hi !!

Environment:

I have just recently set up my first ESXi 5.0. It is on a Dell PowerEdge 1900 with 16 GB RAM. (I have just added a few guest machines.)

I manage this VMware machine through the vSphere Client on a Windows 7 workstation. Also I have vSphere CLI installed. Maybe this can be used for diagnosis.

The problem:

I have added to this host machine a SATA SSD**, Samsung 256GB. It is plugged into one of the four auxilary SATA ports on the the motherboard. From vSphere I can see my two datastores (local and iSCSI), but I do not see my SSD device!

How do I find or detect the SSD? How do I verify that it is seen and recognized by VMware? or how do I get it to be recognized?

**(I will use this SSD as a "swap to host cache" to give more memory to guest machines per http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2011/08/18/swap-to-host-cache-aka-swap-to-ssd/ )

Regards

[el1971]

Hello,

I would suggest you to look at the compatibility guide and see if your SSD is in the list (http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?sourceid=groowe&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8). Hope this can help you further.

BTW, I would suggest you asking this question in the ESX community: http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/server/vsphere/esxi5

Kind regards,

Edi

[schepp]

Discussion successfully moved from VMware Workstation to VMware ESXi 5

[AnandKumarDeva]

Did you try rescanning of devices under Host > Configuration > Storage ?

Also check the VMWare HCL  for compatability

[dbuchanan7]

Edi,

I am sorry but I cannot figure out how to use the VMware Compatability Guide to look up SSD?

If I select "all listings" and then enter the manufacturer of the SSD "Samsung" I get a list of monitors and servers, but no SSD.

The lack of SSD does not appear to mean anything because I can find no listing for the manufacturers of other major SSD manufactuers either such as SanDisk, Crucial or Kingston.

[dbuchanan7]

AnandKumarDeva wrote:

Did you try rescanning of devices under Host > Configuration > Storage ?

Yes I did

[el1971]

Hello,

get the command-line and lauch a rescan on the console:

esxcli storage core adapter rescan --all

Look then under /var/log/messages what output you have and if you see any informational, warning or error message about the SSD.

-- Edi

[dbuchanan7]

Hi,

A friend helped me discover the a solution to this problem.

First, here is what did NOT work:

Inside the chassis I had plugged an available power cable into the SSD card and attached a SATA cable from the SSD card into SATA port 'A' on the motherboard. Then in the BIOS I entered in to the configuration for SATA port 'A' and switched it from "OFF" to "AUTO". When I saved that selection its status would display "UNKNOWN DEVICE" (which was understandable). I saved settings and exited.
After powering on ESXi the SATA SSD remained undetected.

What was wrong? Well, I went back into the BIOS and noticed that SATA port 'A' was still marked as "OFF" and after several tries discoverd that there was no way to save the configuration of SATA port 'A' without it reverting back to "OFF". This is when my friend came up with a suggestion that resulted in success.

Now, here is what DID work:

I pluged the SSD into an available SATA cable on my RAID controller then within the RAID congfiguration "Ctrl-R" on the PowerEdge 1900 configured the SSD as a separate volume and initialized it.

After powering on ESXi I went to Host > Configuration > Hardware > Storage. From there I clicke on the link "Add Storage..." on the right side ot that screen. Using that I was able to find and add it as a datastore.

With the SSD now recognized I could completed the configuration to make it the "swap to host cash" for all my guest machines. See link in my original post.

Regards

[el1971]

Hi,

glad that you worked it out and posted the solution here.

Kind regards,

Edi