ESX 3.5 / HP Smart Array P400 Controller / SATA Drives

[Borracho]

Upon installation of ESX 3.5, as soon as I hit Enter to boot into GUI mode, the 2nd driver that is to load, cciss, hangs on install. I found that this controller is 1 of a few on the HCL for ESX 3.5 using SATA drives, so that isn't an issue. I download the P400 firmware CD from HPs site, but was only able to upgrade to 2.4.0 and this is the latest CD. I also tried using the ESX 3.0.2 driver CD for cciss version 2.4.66 from VMware. Upon starting with either the ESX 3.5 CD or the driver CD, both hang when loading the cciss driver.

Is there any other way to obtain this driver to uprade the firmware of this controller?

[ErikBussink]

• I've used both Smart Array P600 and P800 in non-HP servers. The only way that I have found for the upgrade using the HP Firmware Maintenance CD is to plug the controller in a HP server (even an HP workstation xw9400 isn't recognized by the HP Firmware Maintenance CD).

• Maybe you can do an online firmware update from inside Windows Server 2003 running already on that card. (upgrade to latest version 4.12B)

• Another follow-up question, Can you enter the HP ORCA (Firmware) management of the P400 card at boot ? Do you see the drives ? Do you have the right SAS to SATA cables (The HP SAS-to-SATA cables I ordered with my P600 wasn't working for me, had to get another set of cables from a 3rd party supplier) ? Can you create a RAID Volume with the drives ?

[Borracho]

We were able to use the HP CD to upgrade the P400 to version 4.06 but the ESX server still hangs upon initializing the cciss driver. I was able to load Fedora and Windows Server 2003 on this server as a test to see if the drives were recognized and they are. The controller also automaitally set the array to 1+0 since there are only 2 drives installed for this server.

I just caught that you reference ver 4.12B...where can I obtain a copy of that firmware?

[dominic7]

You can download the online flash component for the P400 firmware, but you will need to install another OS of some sort on the system ( Linux / Windows ) and then flash the device before you'll get ESX 3.5 running on there.

[Borracho]

Well, I was able to upgrade the P400 controller to FW ver 4.12, but I still have the same issue. When I start the installation of ESX 3.5, it stops at "Loading Block Driver.... Loading cciss driver"

At this point I think there is an issue with the cciss driver version that comes with ESX 3.5 not being compatible with this card. Any ideas if there is a cciss 2.4.66 driver specifically for ESX 3.5 and the HP Smart Array P400 controller using SATA drives?

[Luis_F]

Hi.

Have you checked if your hardware is supported? http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi35_san_guide.pdf

I can see P400/256 as supported but, is this your controller?

Regards

[Borracho]

Luis, as I mentioned in my first post, I verified that the HP Smart Array P400/256 is on the ESX 3.5 HCL for use with SATA drives. I need to just find the cciss 2.4.66 driver that is compatible as I have upgraded the controller to the latest FW.

I have heard from someone else that says VMware only support enterprise level drives and they don't consider SATA drives as enterprise level. I am confused so I am going to try to get some tech support from VMware.

[Erik_Bussink]

Borracho,

You aren't looking at the problem from the right angle.

The ESX 3.5.0 and the ESX3i builds ship with the latest version of cciss driver that is optimized and validated by VMware. This integrated driver will support the recent versions of fimrwares on you're Smart Array, may it be P400, P600, P800. They all use the same VMware cciss driver. Check the latest vi35_io_guide.pdf (url is www.vmware.com/pdf/vi35_io_guide.pdf ) document on page 12. The driver provide by VMware is already the 2.4.66

Focus on checking why the cciss driver hangs...

1) When you install linux on you're system, do you see you're P400 and the storage volume you have created ?

2) Have you checked that the md5sum of you're downloaded ESX iso file is the same as the one that VMware shows ? Have you tested the media at the start of the ESX install ?

Hope this helps you a bit,

Regards,

Erik B

[Borracho]

When I installed Fedora 8, it loads with no porblems and sees the hard drives and all volumes. I haven't tested the media yet, but I used this CD over the past 2 weeks to install ESX 3.5 about 5 times with no issues on another server. I suppose I can dig up another server and attempt to test the CD...

I did speak with Ingram Micro's VMware tech support and they are thinking that the SATA drives may not be compatible even though the drive controller is. I am going to run out and pick up a SAS drive and connect it to the same controller since it supports SAS/SATA and see if I can get the drivers loaded.

Thanks...

[Borracho]

After the Kernel loads and ESX is looking at the installed items on the server, I see these messages:

ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x1080 ctl 0x108A bmda 0x10A0 irq 16

ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x1090 ctl 0x109A bmda 0x10A8 irq 16

ATA: abnormal status 0x7F on port 0x1087

ata1: disabling port

ATA: abnormal status 0x7F on port 0x1097

ata2: disabling port

It seems there is either a timeout issue access these drives or they aren't supported. I attempted to look for a firmware upgrade for the drives, but can't seems to locate one. Can anyone explain to me what these messages are referencing? Everything I find on the web has to do with a possible timeout issue using Linux as the OS.

[Erik_Bussink]

These ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 error look a lot like IDE errors. What kind of disk do you have on you're P400 ? is it some kind of IDE drive with just a SATA interface/modification ?

VMware supports only SAS/SATA protocol, not IDE. Have you tried with another SATA drive ?

[jhanekom]

The P400 is a SAS/SATA controller that presents a bunch of storage to the server as one or more SAS (SCSI) disks. The nature of the disks aren't revealed directly to the OS. This is the reason why it is certified for use with ESX and SATA drives.

Maybe the ATA errors you're seeing are for the on-board SATA controller?

[Borracho]

Your absolutely correct in saying that the drives aren't the issue as the controller presents the storage and not the disk type.

What we ended up doing since we flashed the P400 firmware and had the latest drivers on the ESX CD and knew the drives and controller work with Fedora and Windows 2003, is to install the Embedded version. It came up with no problem. Thanks for eveyone that participated. I distributed points to those that were helpful.

[bwildman]

I am having the same issue on a DL320 G5p. When you say you installed the "Embeded version" did that mean the version of the driver 2.4.66 or did you mean you installed on the embedded controller (so not using the P400)?

I can install can install the OS on the E200 controller with SAS drives if I pass the noapic parameter. I can also install if I pull out the E200 and the SAS drives and put in a SATA drive connected to the embeded SATA controller without pasing the noapic parameter.

I think the issue is that the E200 is supported by VMware and HP but the DL320 G5p is not. I think the real issue is a BIOS / IRQ APIC issue.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

bwildman

[rpartmann]

Hi,

a)

i use for devel purpose a hp ML115G1 (yes not supported HW) and a E200 controller.

When this controller is the FIRST controller (all onboard sata disabled) in does not install an hang.

Is the E200 is the second controller and i install on the onboard sata disk, all is fine.

b) using a hp xw8200 instead of the ML115G1 all i s fine.

my 2 cents,

Reinhard

ps: Award points if you find answers helpful. Thanks.

[Texiwill]

Hello,

Moved to ESX 3.5 forum.

Best regards,
Edward L. Haletky
VMware Communities User Moderator, VMware vExpert 2009
====
Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.
Blue Gears and SearchVMware Pro Blogs -- Top Virtualization Security Links -- Virtualization Security Round Table Podcast

[bwildman]

rpartmann

I had already pulled out the e200 and the SAS drives and installed SATA drives on the embeded controller and that worked I just can't install to SAS Dribes on the E200. If I have I did not already have 60 DL320 G5ps with SAS drives and E200s I would just use SATS drives and the embedded controller.

I also tried disabling the IRQ for both embedded SATA controllers with no success. They do not realy disable anyway you still see them on post just with an error about them.

bwildman