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oopszy
Contributor
Contributor

Trying to use HCIbench on my array

I read in a discussion that it can be used on intelligent arrays as well and not only JBODS and DISKs . All my volumes mapped as data store on hosts shows as Ineligible Disks . Is there a way to treat my volumes as disks and run the VDI wrapper IO from HCI bench on my array  ?

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ncriverside
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

The HCIbench needs a datastore to run against, if your volume from the external storage array is presented as a valid datastore, you should be able to run the tool to deploy test VMs in the datastore. The current version of the tool only supports testing one datastore, because the tool was designed originally to test HCI platforms which normally present just one datastore, that said, based on feedback we are making enhancements to support testing multiple datastores from external storage arrays. The new version of the tool should be available in the next 2 weeks.

oopszy
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks ncriverside‌ . I have tried that on my iscsi array . Is there a non limitation if I format the datastore as VMFS ? I am not sure if there is an option to leave the discovered volume as RAW and try to map it as datastore for HCIbench .

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ncriverside
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

The tool only takes a datastore, whether it's VMFS, NFS, or vsanDatastore. The discovered iSCSI LUNs need to be formatted in VMFS, the tool cannot use raw volumes as RDMs.

oopszy
Contributor
Contributor

@ncriverside , Thanks again , However , After formatting it as VMFS it still says ineligible . How do I see the reason why the VMFS formatted ISCSI disks are shown as ineligible .

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oopszy
Contributor
Contributor

I figured out the reason using a utility called vdq -q , It says ineligibel because it has partitions. I would imagine the partitions are a problem when I am re using the volumes previously used with other OS like Windows/Linux , But in this case the raw volume was formatted with VMFS to make it a datastore.

  {

      "Name"     : "t10.ATA_____ST9250610NS_________________________________________9XE0KKLQ",

      "VSANUUID" : "",

      "State"    : "Ineligible for use by VSAN",

"ChecksumSupport": "0",

      "Reason"   : "Has partitions",

      "IsSSD"    : "0",

"IsCapacityFlash": "0",

      "IsPDL"    : "0",

   },

   {

      "Name"     : "eui.96ff72efd9e5ef656c9ce900f4b45efc",

      "VSANUUID" : "",

      "State"    : "Ineligible for use by VSAN",

"ChecksumSupport": "0",

      "Reason"   : "Has partitions",

      "IsSSD"    : "0",

"IsCapacityFlash": "0",

      "IsPDL"    : "0",

   },

]

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oopszy
Contributor
Contributor

banit‌ any comments on this ?

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