Unable Create full size VMFS Datastore on Virtual Disk large than 2T on Dell R710 5+1 Raid 5 PERC6i controller

[Xeno_Sean]

I have installed ESXi4 on my Dell R710.It has 6 1TB SAS disks on PERC6i, 5 disks make Raid 5 with 1 disk hot spare.And i created 3 VD,1 is 40GB to install OS,2 is 1TB to contain ISO and VM template and 3 is 2.6TB to contain VM.

After installed ESXi4 I only found 2 Datastore created:39GB Datastore 1 and 1TB datastore 2.No datastore was created on the 2.6TB VD.

I tried to create manually,but i found that only 635GB size can be created on that 2.6T.Why? As I remembered ESXi4 can support up to 64TB VMFS Datastore.

The BIOS is 1.0.4.

Any one got idea?

[Lightbulb · Accepted solution]

Take a look at this "vSphere and 2TB LUNs changes from VI3.x"

Oh, a 64TB datastore would be made up of 32 extents at ~2TB. The limit on the LUN size behind the datastore is 512B less than 2TB

[AndreTheGiant]

ESX (3.x and 4.x) has a limit to 2 TB also for the single disk size.

You have to create more VD at PERC level each with 2 TB max.

Andre

[dwilliam62]

FYI: The absolute limit is 2047GB. Some controllers will round up to 2048GB if you enter 2TB.

Don