MSA 1000 compatibilty

[mac1978]

I have an old MSA 1000 Fiber Channel SAN that I am planning on using for a datastore on a free ESXi hypervisor host.

I have checked the compatibilty guide and the last listed supported version of ESX is ESX 3.5.

Not being terribly familiar with VMware, I will assume that I can most likely still use this SAN even though it is not listed in the compatibility guide for ESXi 4.1 as it is (my assumption) simply no longer tested or officially supported.

However, I thought I would ask - are there any specific restrictions or issues with FC SAN or SANs in general with the free ESXi Hypervisor?

[MauroBonder]

Hi,

You need check compatibility in HCL http://www.vmware.com/go/hcl .

Please, don't forget the awarding points for "helpful" and/or "correct" answers.

Mauro Bonder - Moderator

[mac1978]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

I'm not sure if you actually read my post.

I have checked the compatibility guide.

Thanks!

[DSTAVERT · Accepted solution]

I would expect that the SAN will work. It won't be supported so if you do have issues and they are related to the SAN don't expect any more than best effort. More important than the SAN would be to make sure the HBAs are supported. If they aren't I wouldn't even consider using them.

[mac1978]

Thank you very much DSTAVERT for the good reply.  That's what I was figuring/hoping to here.  Just wasn't sure if the list was a 'hard' requirement as you seem to imply that the HBA might be.

I have checked my HBA's and they are on the list for ESXi 4.1 so I hopefully 'should' be good.

Oh and out of curiosity are the HBA drivers built into ESXi which is why it is crucial to make sure they are on the compatibility list?

thanks again.

[DSTAVERT]

Included drivers would be one but HBAs may be retired from support simply because they don't work well. Hard to believe that 10GB NICs are being retired from support.

[mac1978]

Yeah dropping 10GB hba wouldn't make much sense.  Thanks again!

[DSTAVERT]

I don't know whether the MSA 1000 still gets updates but it wouldn't hurt to check. I think I saw something recently about a 1500 update but I could be very wrong about that.

[Ohhno]

I have a MSA 1000 and it works with 4.1... For lab.. 🙂

[mac1978]

Thanks for all of the answers.

[DSTAVERT]

Thanks for checking in. If you can could you update your progress.

Thanks

[mac1978]

I have not connected the MSA 1000 to the esxi host yet.  When I do I will provide my results.

[DSTAVERT]

Much appreciated.

Thanks

[mac1978]

Just want to update this post.

Finally connected the MSA 1000 to the server and installed ESXi 4.1.  The FC HBA's are Qlogic QLA2312.  The MSA is working just fine within ESXi.

To configure the MSA 1000 array's and logical drives I used the MSA 1000/1500 Software Support CD found on the MSA 1000 Download page.  The version used was 8.02 - dated 5 May 2009. Using this tool I was able to configure everything that was needed.  I did not have to use the CLI for anything.  SSP is not turned on, but you can configure using this disk.  Also, can't remember for sure, but I'm pretty sure I tried the HP Offline Array Config tool before the Software Support CD and it wouldn't recognize the MSA.

Thanks all for the assistance.