SCSI Raid controller recommendation ESXi 5.5

[NMSU_Net]

I am in the process of moving the 5.5 ESXi to another server using the following:

Server Dell R610 with 12G of ram and a Dell PowerVaul 220S Raid 5 with 12, 1.5-T sata HD space

The Raid controller is an Intel SRCU42E  Ultra320 SCSI PCI-Express X8 with 2x 68pin ext ports.

I am getting the error “ Call “HostDatastoreSystem. CreateVmfsDatastore” for object “ha-datastoresystem” on ESXi” when trying to add a storage. I even installed 5.1 but with the same results.

Later, after a lot research, troubleshooting and headaches, I discover the Raid SCSI card was not compatible with ESXI 5.1, 5.5 only with 4.1 or 4.0 

I start looking into RAID SCSI cards but having hard time getting one with the above specifications that could be compatible with ESXI 5.5

Running out of tricks and don’t have the option of replacing the Dell PowerVault 220S

Can any suggest a PCI-e Raid SCSI card with a 68pin Ext. port that is compatible with 5.1 - 5.5? Any recommendations, fix, work around?  

Thank you

[kunaludapi]

Use this compatibility guide by vmware for the search.

VMware Compatibility Guide: System Search

[NMSU_Net]

Thank you for your response,

I did use the VMware compatibility guide, and that's how let me know it was not compatible. The guide is good if you know the card you going to be use and if looking for a vendor hardware.

When searching it show tons of Raid cards but do not show many features, like 2 ch VHDCI 68pin ports. In other word can't be specific and I understand.

so far I found only one compatible with ESXi 5.1, Adaptec 29320LPE but is PCI-e 1x and one port. I need PCI-e 8x with dual VHDCI 68 pin port.

I know what people are thinking "beggars can't be choosers" but this is not my personal, this is business.

I still don't understand why VMware do not supports many of this Raid cards that are still been use. Forcing people to upgrade their hardware.

[King_Robert · Accepted solution]

ESXi 5.5 System Requirements

When installing or upgrading to ESXi 5.5, ensure that the host meets these minimum hardware configurations supported by ESXi 5.5:

1. Your hardware is compliant on the VMware Compatibility Guide. This includes:
   
   
   • System compatibility
   • I/O compatibility (Network and HBA cards)
   • Storage compatibility
   • Backup software compatibility
2. You have a 64-bit processor. VMware ESXi 5.5 only installs and runs on servers with 64-bit x86 CPUs. It also only supports LAHF and SAHF CPU instructions.
3. You have an ESXi 5.5 host machine with at least two cores.
4. The NX/XD bit is enabled for the CPU in the BIOS.
5. Your processor is supported. ESXi supports a broad range of x64 multicore processors. For a complete list of supported processors,
6. You have 4GB RAM. This is the minimum required to install ESXi 5.5. Provide at least 8GB of RAM to take full advantage of ESXi features and run virtual machines in typical production environments.
7. Support for hardware virtualization (Intel VT-x or AMD RVI) is enabled on x64 CPUs (to support 64-bit virtual machines). For a complete list of operating systems supported with ESXi, Hosts running virtual machines with 64-bit guest operating systems have these hardware requirements:
   
   
   • For AMD Opteron-based systems, the processors must be Opteron Rev E or later.
   • For Intel Xeon-based systems, the processors must include support for Intel Virtualization Technology (VT). Many servers that include CPUs with VT support might have VT disabled by default, so you must enable VT manually. If your CPUs support VT , but you do not see this option in the BIOS, contact your vendor to request a BIOS version that lets you enable VT support.
     
     Note: To determine whether your server has 64-bit VMware support, download the CPU Identification Utility from the VMware Website.
     
     
8. You have one or more Gigabit or 10GB Ethernet controllers. For a list of supported network adapter models, see the VMware Compatibility Guide.
9. You have Storage controllers with any combination of one or more of:
   
   
   • Basic SCSI controllers. Adaptec Ultra-160 or Ultra-320, LSI Logic Fusion-MPT, or most NCR/Symbios SCSI.
   • RAID controllers. Dell PERC (Adaptec RAID or LSI MegaRAID), HP Smart Array RAID, or IBM (Adaptec) ServeRAID controllers.
10. You have SCSI disk or a local, non-network, RAID LUN with unpartitioned space for the virtual machines.
11. For Serial ATA (SATA), a disk connected through supported SAS controllers or supported on-board SATA controllers. SATA disks are considered to be remote, not local. These disks are not used as a scratch partition by default because they are seen as remote.
    
    Note: You cannot connect a SATA CD-ROM device to a virtual machine on an ESXi 5.5 host. To use the SATA CD-ROM device, you must use IDE emulation mode.
    
    
12. You are using a supported storage system. ESXi 5.5 supports installing on and booting from these storage systems:
    
    
    • SATA disk drives. SATA disk drives connected behind supported SAS controllers or supported on-board SATA controllers.
      
      • LSI1068E (LSISAS3442E)
      • LSI1068 (SAS 5)
      • IBM ServeRAID 8K SAS controller
      • Smart Array P400/256 controller
      • Dell PERC 5.0.1 controller
        
        
    • SATA disk drives. Supported on-board SATA include:
      
      • Intel ICH9
      • NVIDIA MCP55
      • ServerWorks HT1000
        
        
    Note: ESXi does not support using local, internal SATA drives on the host server to create VMFS datastores that are shared across multiple ESXi hosts.
    
    
13. You have Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) disk drives supported for installing ESXi 5.5 and for storing virtual machines on VMFS partitions. 
14. You have dedicated SAN disk on Fibre Channel or iSCSI.
15. You have USB devices that are supported for installing ESXi .
16. You can install and boot ESXi from an FCoE LUN using VMware software FCoE adapters and network adapters with FCoE offload capabilities. See the vSphere Storage documentation for information about installing and booting ESXi with software FCoE.

[NMSU_Net]

Robert

Finally my department decided to purchase an upgraded Array box using ISCSI with current technology. I gave up trying to make this controller and the old SCSI Ultra320 working under ESXi 5.5.

I will make sure that every piece of the new Array is compatible with VMware 5.5 

Thank you for the information. Very informative.