ESXi 5.0 does not recognize 4TB storage array

[btg4UK]

Hello all!

This is my setup:

HP ProLiant ML350 G5

• 2x XEON E5345 quadcore
• 12GB RAM
• integrated Smart Array E200i connected to single 250GB SATA disk
• Smart Array P400/512MB connected to two 2TB SATA disks in RAID0 (4TB logical array) (please no comments about RAID0, it's for testing only!)
• LSI 3041X-R PCI-X SAS Controller (nothing connected at the moment)
• vSphere 5.0 starting from USB flash drive)

The server is on the HCL for vSphere 5.

My problem:

In vSphere Client, the 250GB hard disk connected to the E200I controller is recognized correctly, and I can create a VMFS5 datastore without any problems. However, the 4TB array only shows up as a 512byte device, and I can't create a datastore on it.

I also deleted the 4TB RAID0 array and created two 2TB JBOD arrays (one per disk). Now the first one shows up as 1.82TB disk, but the second one as 0.00byte.

Just to add, that the setup worked fine with MS Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 which had no problems recognizing the 4TB RAID0 array out of the box.

So why is that? I thought that vSphere 5 was supposed to be finally able to handle LUNs >2TB, so shouldn't I be able to see the full capacity of both disks in vSphere Client andto create a datastore on it? And what can I do to rectify the situation?

BTW: does anyone know when the HP and Dell editions of vSphere 5 will be available for download?

Thanks,

Ben

[btg4UK]

Zhuominchen wrote:

Wide guess

Your  Raid Controller firmware upgrade URL is belowhttp://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=0&...

It is clear you still don't understand the problem, despite me having it explained many times now. It is NOT A FIRMWARE ISSUE, it is a ISSUE WITHIN ESXi 5.0's DRIVER FOR HP SMART ARRAY CONTROLLERS.

As I said, just throwing in random pieces without understanding the problem is really not helpful.

[john23]

1) are you able to see 4tb volume in storage adapter?

2) have you tried to create the volume using command line vmkfstools?

[btg4UK]

john23 wrote:

1) are you able to see 4tb volume in storage adapter?

Yes, the full 4TB are visible in the storage adapter firmware, in ACU (HP's Array Configuration Utility), and are fully useable in Windows Server 2008 (and Hyper-V Server) and Linux.

As I said, the controller itself handles >2TB volumes perfectly fine.

2) have you tried to create the volume using command line vmkfstools?

I did try that but it didn't work as the volume again showed up as being only 512byte in size.

[john23]

Not storage adapter firmware, vSphere->configuration->Storage adapter->vmhba (what is the volume size its showing)?

In firmware its shows 4 tb ,thats fine....after booting in the specify location ?

[Zhuominchen]

Well, the only way is to create many small Virtual Disks with 1.99 TB each, and combine them in

a single big Data Store. I used this method in ESXI 4.1 (20 TB data store = 10  X 1.99 TB)

  This is clearly  Vmware Driver issue.  

[john23]

....

[btg4UK]

john23 wrote:

Not storage adapter firmware, vSphere->configuration->Storage adapter->vmhba (what is the volume size its showing)?

In firmware its shows 4 tb ,thats fine....after booting in the specify location ?

I remember that It did show up as 512byte volume under the storage adapter section as well. Sorry I can't verify it anymore as the server has now gone into production with Hyper-V Server and at the moment I don't have access to a ProLiant which I could use for experimenting.

But maybe someone else who is affected by that bug can verify the listed drive size.

[btg4UK]

Zhuominchen wrote:

Well, the only way is to create many small Virtual Disks with 1.99 TB each, and combine them in

a single big Data Store. I used this method in ESXI 4.1 (20 TB data store = 10  X 1.99 TB)

  This is clearly  Vmware Driver issue.  

Unfortunately this doesn't work either, because as explained in the original post once I created a 2x 2TB JBOD array then the first array was correctly recognized as 2TB (1.82TB to be precise) but the second array showed up as 0.00TB (zero).

This is clearly  Vmware Driver issue. 

I'm glad that finally the penny dropped 😉

[Josh26]

btg4UK wrote:

Unfortunately this doesn't work either, because as explained in the original post once I created a 2x 2TB JBOD array then the first array was correctly recognized as 2TB (1.82TB to be precise) but the second array showed up as 0.00TB (zero).

I have three Proliant DL380 G6's running a P400 RAID card in exactly the above configuration with a 1.8TB LUN and a 600GB LUN spanned across a single drive array, and it's running fine under ESXi 5.0.

[btg4UK]

I have three Proliant DL380 G6's running a P400 RAID card in exactly the above configuration with a 1.8TB LUN and a 600GB LUN spanned across a single drive array, and it's running fine under ESXi 5.0.

Are you really sure its a P400 controller? The DL380 G6 have integrated P410 controllers, and the P400 is not even supported in the DL380 G6.

[Josh26]

btg4UK wrote:

I have three Proliant DL380 G6's running a P400 RAID card in exactly the above configuration with a 1.8TB LUN and a 600GB LUN spanned across a single drive array, and it's running fine under ESXi 5.0.

Are you really sure its a P400 controller? The DL380 G6 have integrated P410 controllers, and the P400 is not even supported in the DL380 G6.

Hi,

To clarify, I tend to refer to them all as "P400 series" since they all run the same firmware and use the same drivers.

Specifically, it's the integrated P410i.

[btg4UK]

ssHi,

To clarify, I tend to refer to them all as "P400 series" since they all run the same firmware and use the same drivers.

Specifically, it's the integrated P410i.

A P410 is *not* a 'P400 series. The P400 is a first generation Smart Array SAS controller supporting only SAS/SATA 3G and DDR2 battery backed Cache. The P410 is a second generation Smart Array SAS controller supporting SAS/SATA 6G, 4k sector size hard disks and SSDs, and aside from DDR3 battery backed cache also supports up to 1GB of flash-based cache. Both P400 and P410 use completely different hardware and firmware

The only part that is shared between P400 and P410 is the driver, but only because HP (like Nvidia) uses an unified driver which supports all SAS controller models of two Smart Array generations. Still, this driver contains unique routines for every specific controller variant.

However, the fact that arrays >2TB are recognized correctly on your Smart Array P410 controller at least shows that the part of the ESXi 5.0 Smart Array driver that handles the current SAS 6G controllers works correctly, and that the problem is apparently specific to how it handles the previous generation SAS 3G Smart Array controllers.

[a_p_]

This is a known issue with the current cciss driver. Since it is software based, I hope this will soon be resolved.

see KB article vSphere 5.0 hosts are unable to see logical volumes larger than 2TB on some HP RAID controllers

André

[btg4UK]

André Pett wrote:

This is a known issue with the current cciss driver. Since it is software based, I hope this will soon be resolved.

see KB article vSphere 5.0 hosts are unable to see logical volumes larger than 2TB on some HP RAID controllers

André

Thanks for the link. That shows that my initial suspicion that this was an ESXi driver issue is correct. It's a bit disappointing that this still seems to be unfixed, though. It's a major flaw with some of the most widespread RAID controllers so one would think VMWare shows a bit more engagement to fix this.

So that means at the moment that arrays >2TB - 512byte are not possible under ESXi 5.0 with Smart Array E200, E500, P400, P600 and P800 controllers. One could replace the controller with a second generation Smart Array SAS controller (P211, P410, P810 etc) which should allow arrays >2TB. Or wait for VMWare to finally fix the problem.

[UKuehn]

The cciss driver for P400 and related Smart Array Controllers is under responsibility of HP instead of VMware, isn't it?

I found at http://cciss.sourceforge.net/#downloads that there was a rather up-to-date version, dated as

  Last updated Dec 7, 2011 latest version is 3.6.28-15

Is there any chance to use this driver version in ESXi 5.0 that would solve the problem?

(As far as the problem has been solved with that version at all.)

[teledataconsult]

I can confirm this problem still exists with vSphere 5.0 Update 1

Not a huge surprise since this RAID controller is now 2 generations old.....

[TechFan]

Anyone tried the HP custom image released a few weeks ago?  I don't see any mention of an updated driver in the release notes. . .

[Kaptain1]

Hi All,

The KB article at VMware says:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=200694...

"To work around this issue, configure multiple logical volumes of the  maximum size (2TB - 512 bytes) using the hardware raid-controller  firmware.

You can dynamically add new extents to your VMFS datastore to  increase the VMFS volumes capacity using smaller logical volumes, to a  maximum of 64TB"

Help me understand this. Can I still make a RAID 1+0 with 4 x 2TB hard-drives (so that i can achieve faster speeds than the current RAID1 i have)? Or, does the "logical volume" means that i'll have to create 2 x RAID1's on my P400 controller which should be less than 2TB each?

Thank You!

[Kaptain1]

Hi, i'm intersted in trying it out (HP Custom Image which was released recently), where can i download it from? Link please?

Thanks

[Rubeck]

https://h20392.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=HPVM09

/Rubeck