ESXi & HDD pass through...

coolamasta

coolamasta

coolamasta

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Hi Guys,

I am a bit stuck, firstly quick bit of info - I have an Asus Z9PE-D8 Workstation/Server motherboard with a pair of EP-Xeons etc, I have installed ESXi 5.1 and all is working fine but having a problem with HDD pass through...

Before I go any further with the whole build I want one of my VM's to have direct access to one of the harddrives, well I say harddrive but I mean a Raid-array.

Basically I want a storage VM, I have a LSI Raid-controller running 4 x 3TB WD RED's in a R5 and I want a VM to have direct (RAW) access to this array and so not have to use a VMFS-5 datastore but at the moment I cant seem to get it to work.

I have played with hardware pass-through etc but no matter what I try I cannot add a 'RAW' storage drive to a VM :(

Not sure what else to try now to be honest so was hoping for some help haha.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance for any help :)
 
I've not done anything like this, but I had to use command line to attach individual SATA disks to my VM as RDMs since its not supported. I'd have thought you need to pass the raid controller to the VM rather than the volume?
 
Yeah I did try passing through the raid-controller but it cant see the volume, interesting about the commands lines you needed, any idea what you used or where you got the info from bud? :)
 
I used this guide for RDMs to pass drives through to my nas vm

forza-it.co.uk/esxi-5-1-using-raw-device-mappings-rdm-on-an-hp-microserver/
 
Keeps failing when I try and run the command, tried 2 different ways of doing it but get same error:

vmi1.jpg


Think I will have to get my Google on, thats deffo the right path for the raid controller though, I have checked it 10 times haha, any ideas?
 
This is the other command I tried:

/vmfs/volumes # vmkfstools -z /vmfs/devices/disks/mpx.vmhba2:C0:T0:L0 /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/p800.vmdk
 
The following works for me on my ProLiant ML110 G7.

List attached disks:
ls -l /vmfs/devices/disks/
e.g. "t10.ATA_____WDC_WD2500AAKX2D753CA1________________________WD2DWMAYUD123456"

Create RDM pass-through:
vmkfstools -z /vmfs/devices/disks/t10.ATA_____WDC_WD2500AAKX2D753CA1________________________WD2DWMAYUD123456 /vmfs/volumes/Samsung830-256-01/Test8/rdm_WD250.vmdk -a lsilogic
 
Where Samsung830-256-01 is the name of the datastore where the RDM pointer file will live.
 
Uhtred said:
Does this even work on 3tb drives?
Click to expand...

Yes. I use this on a pair of 3TB Seagate drives. Server 2012 sees them as -127MB though in disk management (from memory), although they initialise and run fine in normal use and can be partitioned ok.

OP - Instead of using the '...C0:T0:L0' part of the drive address, just copy the device identifier from vSphere Client. Select your host, go to the configuration tab, select Storage Adapters, find your adapter, find your disk in the list of devices and select 'Copy identifier to clipboard' from the context menu.

Then drop that into your vmfsktools command where highlighted. E.g.:

vmkfstools -z /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.5000c5004df364ff /vmfs/volumes/RDMs/SomeDrive/SomeDriveRDM.vmdk
 
Shad said:
Yes. I use this on a pair of 3TB Seagate drives. Server 2012 sees them as -127MB though in disk management (from memory), although they initialise and run fine in normal use and can be partitioned ok.

OP - Instead of using the '...C0:T0:L0' part of the drive address, just copy the device identifier from vSphere Client. Select your host, go to the configuration tab, select Storage Adapters, find your adapter, find your disk in the list of devices and select 'Copy identifier to clipboard' from the context menu.

Then drop that into your vmfsktools command where highlighted. E.g.:

vmkfstools -z /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.5000c5004df364ff /vmfs/volumes/RDMs/SomeDrive/SomeDriveRDM.vmdk
Click to expand...

Cheers bud, will try that later on :) The drive address is very short as its not a standalone drive, its a raid controller with an array on it, it shows under devices in vSphere as that address as well but will see what is listed under Identifier because like you say I have a feeling the C0:T0:L0 is not on that bit...

WIll let you know how I get on :)
 
2 3TB disk would be too large to deal with. I know I read a post about this but you might need to set up something if your drive reaches 1TB and above.
 
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