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stanj
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Upgrade of ESXi 6.5 - no longer can see internal server RAID drives

We have an incident where after upgrading our Supermciro to the latest 6.5 ESXi release where ESXi is not seeing the internal SAS drives. 

Internal SAS controller is not seeing the drives.  Prior to the ESXi update, vCenter was showing under Storage Adapters, MegaRAID SAS Invader Controller with Storage Device Local AVAGO disk.

I booted the ESXi server and went into the RAID utility. All of the drives show on-line and active with no failures.

I checked with the vendor and we tried a new backplane riser card.  Did not help.  He said if the drives are seen by the controller, then he thinks the problem is not a hardware issue. 

He thinks there is some disconnect in the ESXi somewhere …especially since the only two hardware pieces it could be at this point are backplane and motherboard. However, the internal SATA drives are working fine, so that really rules out the backplane and motherboard.

Has anyone seen anything like this after upgrading ESXi 6.5?


Anyone see something similar?

thanks

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7 Replies
IRIX201110141
Champion
Champion

Check if your RAID Controller is on the HCL and which combo of FW and ESXi 6.5.x driver is needed.  Often an "async" driver is needed which means the HBA vendor have to deliver an updated version of the driver and not VMware.

Regards,
Joerg

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stanj
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I will check the HCL and also circle back to the vendor.

The vendor usually builds to spec based on HCL.

thanks

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stanj
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Did get some other info

I see the below, which looks to be new for Avago

  VMware ESXi 6.5

   lsi-mr3 7.708.09.00-1OEM 

  SAS Driver for Avago Megaraid SAS 12Gbps Based SAS Adapters

i have to check with the vendor and also see which driveris currently installed

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IRIX201110141
Champion
Champion

You need the Vendor/PCIID of the device and than check which driver is needed.  Use the HCL VMware Compatibility Guide - I/O Device Search (upper right) for that job.  As a user of a 12G SAS HBA a wrong driver is loaded first and i have to disable this module so that the right one kicks in. 

About the Vendor/PCIID... this is how ESXi select a driver for a device.

Regards,
Joerg

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stanj
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I am checking with the vendor for the device info.

Is there a way to roll back the ESXi Server to U3, which would be the version at which the RAID was working.

That would be two patches that would need to roll back

Thanks


Stan

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devilmeng
Contributor
Contributor

Dear friends

we have the same incident.

I just update the ESXi 6.5 from 8294253 to 15256549 .

The RAID Card is also AVAGO .

Before to do the update,I check with the Update Manager,it is ok.

Then,I rebuild the OS with ESXi 6.5 15256549,all the install process with no proram,but When I reboot the system,it faild.

Tomorrow I well check the  RAID Card firmware version and update it to the last version, and rebuild the OS again.

Tanks!

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stanj
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

There is a way to roll back the previous version of ESXi

VMware Knowledge Base

However, we need to be at the latest release of 6.5.

I would like to update the driver, but need the process and correct driver.

thanks

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