PSOD on SCSI tape access

[Thuizt]

Hello,

We have an ESXi 3.5 installed on a HP PL350-G5.

On it is running only one VM, Windows 2003 SBS

The Windows 2003 runs Symantec Backup Exec 12.5

This has been running several month without issues.

Suddenly the host started crashing on Tape access. As we found on the internet comparable situations with LSI SCSI controllers which we also used in combination with Symantec 12.5 we replaced the LSI Controller with an Adaptec card. However the same result.

Not only Symantec makes the host crash, also NTBackup did crash the host. We saw it started rewinding but the moment we believe it started writing to tape the host crashed.

Any help / suggestions / solutions are very welcome.

Thanks

[DSTAVERT]

Situations like this can be difficult to diagnose. Have a look through Windows Event logs and the vmware logs for the guest to see if there is anything relevant. I would consider moving the backup function off the host altogether.

[Thuizt]

Well that's the easy solution that will not be appreciated.

Host runs VM with OEM license so cannot be moved off the box.

Moving Symantec from Small Business server to normal server also requires new licensing.

So this is no option.

We bought VMWare support so will try that way.

Thanks for answering anyway.

[VMmatty]

I had a nearly identical problem a while back with a tape drive passed through to a virtual machine. It ended up being a bug that was fixed in a patch but that patch was release over a year ago. If you're behind in patches this might be the issue, otherwise I'd continue with VMware support.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=101013...

Specifically:

Fixes an issue where ESX might fail if a SCSI read command is split for a tape device. Splitting commands is not supported for tape devices. After this fix is applied split SCSI commands will fail but this will not cause ESX to fail.