Setting up SCSI card

[b1izzard]

I was told I needed the following drivers for my PERC 3/DC scsi card: aacraid version 3.5.10.5vmw

Anyone know where I can find these, and the process to install them? I am running Windows SBS 2003 and trying to get a backup drive working.

[TobiasKracht]

Driver is here. What kind of backup are you doing?

StarWind Software R&D

[b1izzard]

Ok. I messed up. I have a Perc 3/dc and it's not on the hcl. I was getting it confused with the Perc 3/di. I am trying to setup a backup drive, but I need VMWare ESXi 4.0 to recognize the SCSI card. I added the Perc 3/dc card, but in the virtual machine settings for the Windows SBS 2003 server, it does not show any available devices when I try to add a SCSI device.

So my question is, do you know if the driver is automatically loaded by VMWare when you add a new SCSI card, or do you have to go in and manually configure it? The driver is supposedly the

aacraid version 3.5.10.5vmw

Not that it matters now because my card isn't compatible, but I'm looking at buying a compatible Adaptec SCSI card, and need to know if it will be auto detected by VMWare.

Until VMWare sees a compatible SCSI card, I'm going nowhere.

[mcowger]

Any card on the HCL will be auto detected.

--Matt

VCP, vExpert, Unix Geek

[DSTAVERT · Accepted solution]

The driver may support the card you are using but it my not recognize the card. VMware uses device IDs to match devices to drivers. You can run lspci -p to list all the detected devices.

The perc 3/dc should have

PCI ID: 101e:1960;

try lspci -p |grep 101e:1960

The card is included in the /etc/vmware/simple.map file and uses the megaraid2.o driver

[b1izzard]

When running the command, it shows:

03:00.00 101e:1960 1028:0493 10/ 10/0x81 A V megaraid2 vmhba2

I'm guessing this is good. If this is good, does this mean that the device I have connected to the Perc 3/dc isn't being recognized by VMWare? When I try to add a new SCSI device to the virtual machine using 'edit settings', it only shows a the CD-Rom in the drop down as an option to select. Thanks to all for your assistance thus far.

[TobiasKracht]

101e:1960 is ID of PowerEdge RAID Controller 3/DC.

StarWind Software R&D

[b1izzard]

Does this mean that the device that I connected to the Perc SCSI card isn't compatible? It doesn't appear when I go to the virtual machine > edit settings, and try to add a new SCSI device from the drop down menu.

[DSTAVERT]

What device do you have attached to the SCSI card.

[DSTAVERT]

Has the card worked with the device in other situations. RAID controllers don't necessarily support devices other than disks or external arrays. Check the documentation.

[b1izzard]

I tried a SCSI drive first, but am going to install a Sony AITe100 backup drive to test tonight.

[DSTAVERT]

The card does support tape drives. I don't know about termination or setups you may need to do within the card but the tape drive will either show up or not (assuming the card is functional).

http://www.lsi.com/obsolete/megaraid_elite_1600_2446.html?remote=1&locale=EN

[b1izzard]

I guess that leads to the obvious question. Is there any use for a SCSI card other than a disk array? I am running off a SATA controller for the hard drives without any problems. I suppose there is no point in doing backups to a tape drive from within the virtual machine when you can just backup the virtual machine files.

[DSTAVERT]

ESXi will not back up to tape and these days I'm not sure tape is a good destination. One of the beauties of VMware virtualization is that the VMs can be copied and moved from underneath the running VM. There are many ways to go about it. Commercial software, to freeware scripts and everything in between. You can add some form of external shared storage and clone to that. My favorite is NFS added to the ESXi host as a datastore and lamw's excellent ghettoVCB script from http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8760

[b1izzard]

Thanks for the assistance to all!

[mdri]

My Adaptec 3405 is not being detected during ESXi 4.0U1 installable setup. This host works fine with ESX 3.5U4. I tried an upgrade and it failed. So I'm now trying a new install.

It is on the HCL, and the HCL reports aacraid version 3.5.10.5vmw is needed. I'm also interested in downloading it to try an apply it manually. Anyone know how to obtain this driver file?

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Driver updates can be found here - http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/datacenter_downloads/vmware_vsphere_4/4#drivers_tools or you can just update ESXi to the latest firmware version.

This is the version that comes back for ESXi 4.0 update 1 so if you get it installed you'll have the latest aacraid driver - Version: Version 1.1-5[2459].5vmw, Build: 208167, Interface: 9.0, Built on: Nov 8 2009

Parameters:

Dave

VMware Communities User Moderator

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