Areca 1883i volumes not available for datastore

[Clingingon]

New esxi user here. Purchased vsphere essentials. Installed latest esxi 7.0u3f on brand new server with areca arc-1883i raid controller. Two RAID volumes created via RAID bios. RAID volumes don't show up as available for datastores under vmware web client. RAID tested good by server vendor prior to shipment. I'm unable to submit a support request to vmware because of something about entitlements. I'm guessing there is something like a esxi RAID card driver to install, but I have no idea how to do that. Any ideas or links to documentation?

[scott28tt]

Use this tool to check for controller compatibility: https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=io

[IRIX201110141]

The driver for that RAID HBA is not part of the VMware "Vanilla" Install Media. So take a look and download it from https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/detail.php?deviceCategory=io&productid=46899&deviceCa...

Upload into /tmp   and than

esxcli software vib install -d /tmp/foobar.zip

or

esxcli software vib install -n /tmp/foobar.vib

Most drivers come as a zip packages and there is index.xml and vib inside.  You need always to speficy the complete path to the *.zip/.vib

Set the host into MM and reboot after finishing the installation.

Regards,
Joerg

[Clingingon]

Joerg: Extraordinary help - you nailed it. Thank you for taking time from your day to make mine so much better.

Just for future reference, the zip archive that finally worked was a zip archive nested inside of the zip archive that is provided as a download.

The download was VMW-ESX-6.5.0-arcmsrn-2.00.00.05-16913232.zip

The folder nested inside was VMW-ESX-6.5.0-arcmsrn-2.00.00.05-offline_bundle-16913232.zip

Used WinSCP to copy that nested zip archive (left as a zip file) to the tmp folder of the ESXi installation, then used Putty to SSH the following command:

esxcli software vib install -d /tmp/VMW-ESX-6.5.0-arcmsrn-2.00.00.05-offline_bundle-16913232.zip

[IRIX201110141]

You're welcome.