Why is hardware acceleration not supported with HP SmartArray controllers under ESXi 6.0?

[bbiandov]

Hi everyone,

I've noticed something interesting - either the disk hardware acceleration shows as unknown or not supported? Why is hardware acceleration not supported with HP SmartArray controllers? Those are the grand daddy of hardware acceleration and yes I am running the custom HP image of ESXi 6.0, specifically HPE-ESXi-6.0.0-Update3-iso-600.9.7.0.17 (Hewlett Packard Enterprise). The controllers are otherwise recognized with granular sensor readings on things like controller battery status, temperature, etc.The server platform is also recognized accurately as ProLiant etc.

There isn't any anomaly as far as performance or operation yet I am curious; if HP SmartArray controller isn't recognized as a hardware acceleration under ESXI 6.0 then what is? Am I missing a step to somehow "enable" hardware acceleration with SmartArray controller? If not what bare metal out there is recognized as hardware accelerated disk?

Thank you

[daphnissov · Accepted solution]

Why is hardware acceleration not supported with HP SmartArray controllers?

Hardware acceleration refers to VAAI, and there is no VAAI support for internal server-class storage controllers, only shared storage arrays. What you're seeing is normal and doesn't represent a problem.

[bbiandov]

Thanks daphnissov​ ! VAAI explains it.