Running ESXi on Fujitsu Siemens PRIMERGY RX100 S4 Server?

[Bolgard]

Hi,

Have anyone installed ESXi on PRIMERGY RX100 S4 Server? It's not on the HCL, but I was wondering if it's possible to install it using the Installable ESXi version anyway (though unsupported)? What about the RAID-controller (mirroring the disks)?

Thanks in advance!

[Dave_Mishchenko]

There are a few other Fujitsu servers on the whitebox HCL list here. What sort of RAID controller does the system have? Controllers that would be considered "soft-RAID" or "fake-RAID" don't seem to work with ESXi - you can just access the drives individually.

[Bolgard]

The RAID-controller is LSI Logic Embedded MegaRAID on chipset Intel ICH7R.

I found something similar on your link, but the exact RAID-controller was not listed. Anyone got it running with the above configuration?

EDIT: I also found the PCI ID (), and the following is listed from simple.map (the id was Vendor 8086 Device 27C3):

8086

27c3

0000

0000

storage

ahci

2801GR/GH (ICH7 Family) Serial ATA Storage Controller RAID

Does this mean it will work?

[Dave_Mishchenko]

ESX(i) ships with a driver that supports the ICH* family, but soft-RAID functionality is not supported so so you would to run the ICH7R connected drives in a non-RAID mode. If the server has an LSI controller as well, you might have better luck using that.

[Bolgard]

I see. How do I know if I can run RAID using my LSI Logic Embedded MegaRAID controller? Would it help if I bought a seperate RAID controller card? Do you have any to recommend?

[Dave_Mishchenko]

It'll depend on what model of controller the system has. Do you know the specific model (eg LSI 1064e, 1068, etc)? If you do look at another controller then it's best to get something from the HCL - http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi35_io_guide.pdf. If you are concerned about performance, then you'll want something with a battery backed write cache. There are also models that others have tested that are not on the HCL but seem to work fine.

[Bolgard]

Well, if this one does not work then I won't have any choice but to buy another. But I would like to be sure about this one first. I've mailed the Fujitsu-Siemens support about what the exact model is on the RAID-controller, couldn't find it anywhere. What I've found is that it's called LSI Logic Embedded MegaRAID on chipset Intel ICH7R. I'll get back to you when I've got the response from them. Thanks.

[Bolgard]

Well, it all seems a bit hopeless right now. In it states that "IDE RAID and SATA RAID are not supported for the VMFS file system.". What does this mean? Also, I can't seem to find a S-ATA-controllercard anywhere that is on the supported list? If I'm correct, ESXi currently only supports the controller listed under the header Supported SAS/SATA Dual Controllers?

I don't get it. How do people setup ESXi with S-ATA-configurations? I can't beleive they just run it on a single disk and hopes for the best? Even if the actual VMs are stored on a network storage it would mean several hours of downtime if the one disk running the ESXi crashed because the whole machine would have to be reinstalled and reconfigured.

What am I missing?