Help on ESXi 6.5 server running on Dell Poweredge 320

[octobus]

Hello,

I've a server ESXi 6.5 running on a Dell Poweredge R320 with 3 SATA 4Tb disk mounted as a virtual disk in RAID5 (8Tb).

This server is running since 2016 without any problems. Now I'm  getting several performances issues. I noticed that one of the disk has the status led that's flashing green and amber (predictive fault).

Here the output of the storage list command:

esxcli storage core device list

naa.6b083fe0e9e63c001c5e1d5e0f1db13e

   Display Name: Local DELL Disk (naa.6b083fe0e9e63c001c5e1d5e0f1db13e)

   Has Settable Display Name: true

   Size: 7629824

   Device Type: Direct-Access

   Multipath Plugin: NMP

   Devfs Path: /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.6b083fe0e9e63c001c5e1d5e0f1db13e

   Vendor: DELL

   Model: PERC H310

   Revision: 2.12

   SCSI Level: 5

   Is Pseudo: false

   Status: on

   Is RDM Capable: false

   Is Local: true

   Is Removable: false

   Is SSD: false

   Is VVOL PE: false

   Is Offline: false

   Is Perennially Reserved: false

   Queue Full Sample Size: 0

   Queue Full Threshold: 0

   Thin Provisioning Status: unknown

   Attached Filters:

   VAAI Status: unsupported

   Other UIDs: vml.02000000006b083fe0e9e63c001c5e1d5e0f1db13e504552432048

   Is Shared Clusterwide: false

   Is Local SAS Device: false

   Is SAS: false

   Is USB: false

   Is Boot USB Device: false

   Is Boot Device: false

   Device Max Queue Depth: 128

   No of outstanding IOs with competing worlds: 32

   Drive Type: logical

   RAID Level: RAID5

   Number of Physical Drives: 3

   Protection Enabled: false

   PI Activated: false

   PI Type: 0

   PI Protection Mask: NO PROTECTION

   Supported Guard Types: NO GUARD SUPPORT

   DIX Enabled: false

   DIX Guard Type: NO GUARD SUPPORT

   Emulated DIX/DIF Enabled: false

The ESXi events got a lot of errors, as the attached image shows.

Thank you in advance.

Riccardo

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

Welcome to the Community,

I'm not sure what exactly you are asking for.

Is it about how to replace the disk? In this case I'd recommend that you download, and install the percli tool on the host, which may be used to check the controller/disks, and also to set the faulty disk offline prior to removing it (see How to use the PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) Command Line Interface (CLI) utility to manage your ... which shows basic commands, and also contains a link to the documentation).

André

[octobus]

Hello

Today I put offline the disk with the predictive failure. Then I powered off the physical server and removed the disk, leaving the two other RAID disk online. Now the ESXi seems running well and no more get "Lost access to volume..." warnings. On the next week I'll migrate the data from these 400-AAEB SATA disks to three new brand 400-ALRT SAS disk, always configured as RAID5.I'm choosing SAS since I cannot find a resellers (here in Italy) delivering these SATA 400-AAEB. BTW I think SAS is better than SATA.

André, last week I tried to do something with PERCLI but I wasn't able to download and install these tools on this server, something went wrong but I don't remember exactly what. I will try again to do this task as soon as possible.

Thank you and best regards

Riccardo