ESX 3.0.2 Hosts Cannot See VMFS 3.31 Datastore

[LyleMagdalinski]

HP Proliant BL460c blades. HP EVA 6000 environment. Qlogic HBAs.

Created a new vDisk and presented to ESX 3.5.0 ESX host. Created VMFS Datastore using that host. Looks like 3.5 Hosts formats the datastore as VMFS 3.31.

Then presented the same vDisk to ESX 3.0.2 ESX host. Ensured that both hosts were presented the vDisk using the same LUN ID. The 3.0.2 Host can see the vDisk (meaning it shows up in Configuration | Storage Adapters when I do a Rescan). If I access Configuration | Storage, the VMFS volume is not displayed. If I select Add Storage... I can see the vDisk, but of course if I add the vDisk here, the VMFS will be destroyed...

I've attached screenshots of the ESX 3.0.2 hosts.

Tried present the 3.31 vDisk to multiple 3.0.2 hosts with same result.

Is this a known issue?

[RParker]

yup. That's true. A 3.5 / 3i created it, only those hosts can't see it.

they tried to tell us that you can't vmotion or migrate between 3.21 and 3.31 VMFS volumes, but that's not true.

[peetz]

Is it recommended or even possible to upgrade a VMFS 3.21 volume created by a ESX 3.0 host to VMFS 3.31?

- Andreas

[depping]

as fas as i know it's not possible to do a minor upgrade of a vmfs volume.

Duncan

My virtualisation blog:

[espi3030]

Lyle,

I know this is an old post, where you able to add your datastore without formatting? I am having the same exact issue, except my VMFS version is 3.21 and I still can't add it. It happened one time before in another datacenter but a re-boot fixed that. On this new datacenter I cannot get multiple hosts to see the datastore. Any additional information you can provide me is greatly appreciated.

[LyleMagdalinski]

No, I had to recreate the VMFS with an ESX 3.0.2 host in order to get both the 3.0.x and 3.5 ESX to see it.

What kind of SAN?

Ensure you have presented the LUNs/VDisks to each ESX host using the same ID. This got me a couple of times in the past.