ESXi 4.1 and Crucial SSD 256gb sata

[MarcBingham]

Hi folks,

First time poster here.

I'm fairly new VMweare so please forgive me if I'm gettting some of the terminology incorrect.

I have an HP Proliant DL380 G7 with the p410i card and am going through a period of testing to attempt to build a VM server that fits our needs.

I'm currently using the free (Hypervisor) product until I get a feel for the features we'll be needing when we buy.

I have been able to set up an ESXi server once or twice. First time using a small amount of sata HHDs. The second time I decided it would be much neater to have ESXi running of an external 4gb USB drive and that also seems to work very nicely.

However I really like the idea of using SSD drives in the VM (Our Servers are very READ intensive). I purchased a couple of Crucial SSD drives. Namely.

Crucial m4 2.5inch 256gb 6Gb/s which appears to be Crucials newest generation of SSD.

When I place the drive into a caddy and then into a drive bay, the caddy light blinks once or twice then does nothing for about 5 minutes. After about 5 minutes the fans on my server spin up and the TEMP warning light comes on and the server crashes/powers off.

Anyone experienced simlar issues?

Can I use SSD Drives in this way?

Surely ESXi and SSD work together?

Any advice anyone can offer will be very gratefully recieved.

[idle-jam]

yes it will work but the ssd needs to be connected to a sata controller that is in the HCL list ..

[MarcBingham]

It is in the HCL.

I checked the HCL before I brought the Server. The entire DL380 G7 system and controllers are FULLY supported.

The SSD drive just crashes the whole thing.

[DSTAVERT]

Your description suggests a hardware issue not ESXi.

[MarcBingham]

The drive itself does appear to work quite happily when plugged into a window xp box.

Looking at the HP Support site there seems to be a firmware update for the Smart Array P410i storage controller.

I'll have a go at applying that and see if that makes a difference

[DSTAVERT]

When I place the drive into a caddy and then into a drive bay, the caddy light blinks once or twice then does nothing for about 5 minutes. After about 5 minutes the fans on my server spin up and the TEMP warning light comes on and the server crashes/powers off.

The above suggests there is an issue that deserves careful consideration. While an update may fix the problem, make sure there isn't something that can damage the system, physical or electrical. This is a non HP drive plugged into a dualport SAS backplane.