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bluecope21w
Contributor
Contributor

Only one LUN (of multiple) can be added as a Datastore in ESX from a 3ware Controller

I just setup a very nice ESX 4.0 installation but the last remaining problem that has been plaguing me all day is getting my storage online. Here is some background on the bare metal:

  • 4U 16 bay chassis with SAS/SATA multilane

  • 3ware 9550SXU-16ML RAID Controller

  • 8 x 2TB HDDs

Here are my intentions for configuration:

  • Run Openfiler as a guest host to provide iSCSI to other guests

  • Have the 3ware run RAID 5 natively

-> I need to make the card useful for something!

-> I'd rather have hw doing this than sw

  • RAID 5 unit autocarved into 2TiB LUNs

My problem is this: when I boot into ESX, run vSphere, and add a Datastore I am presented with only one LUN. I know that the 3ware is creating the multiple LUNs fine. In fact, if I boot a fedora live cd and run "fdisk -l" I see all the LUNs show up. 3dm2 for the RAID card also shows the LUNs (there are 5 for my current configuration) when I access it thorough ESX. How can I get the others to show? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I am not sure where to go from here in order to get all LUNs showing in ESX. I have a feeling that this is related to the way the driver for the 3ware is programmed in ESX. The interesting thing, though, is when I add all the 8 HDDs as single units, ESX detects the separate LUNs just fine and lets me add them. I /could/ present these separately to Openfiler and have it do a software raid but I would rather not.

For reference, here is the driver that runs the 3ware: http://3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=15600

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teledataconsult
Contributor
Contributor

Did you ever find a resolution?

I was just doing a rebuild of a storage box.

9550 8 lane, (8x750GB). Planning a similar use. Setup Autocarve (3 x 1.6TB) Was going to present them to the HP LeftHand VSA to create an iSCSI virtual SAN...

It only sees 1 partition. I had gotten these 3ware cards working before they released a vSphere driver for the 9550, by altering the PCI.ID and adding support to their current drivers, but this time I used the "official" 9550 ESX driver, but the same problem exists...

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joshhanson314
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Contributor

I know it's been a while, but has anything been resolved with this? I'm experiencing exactly the same thing in ESXi 4.1. This thread seems to be the only one describing the problem I am having. Thanks.

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