ESXI 6.0 Passthrough onboard SATA

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ehfortin

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Nov 1, 2015
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If you are to do pass-through to the VM, VMware doesn't need to have a driver for the card. It is your guest OS that will have to support it. If you want to do RDM (Raw Device Mapping) where the AHCI controller stays Under the ESXI control, then yes, you are right, you need a driver at this level.

As you refered to pass-through, I would say you should be good with the driver from the OS in your VM.
 

T_Minus

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Feb 15, 2015
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How would I pass it through if it's not on the 'pass through' list then ?
 

ehfortin

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If in the DirectPath I/O Configuration screen you are unable to mark a device for passthrough, it means your server is not doing vt-d. You have to make sure you chipset can do it, your processor support it, your bios is allowing it and then, in the directpath I/O configuration, if you click on edit (on the right of the screen while in VSphere Client), you should be able to mark the devices you want to set as passthrough.

This feature is working at the hardware level so it is a PCI address that you are passing to the VM. That's why you don't need a driver at the virtualization level.

I guess you will have some setup to check.
 

T_Minus

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Feb 15, 2015
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If in the DirectPath I/O Configuration screen you are unable to mark a device for passthrough, it means your server is not doing vt-d. You have to make sure you chipset can do it, your processor support it, your bios is allowing it and then, in the directpath I/O configuration, if you click on edit (on the right of the screen while in VSphere Client), you should be able to mark the devices you want to set as passthrough.

This feature is working at the hardware level so it is a PCI address that you are passing to the VM. That's why you don't need a driver at the virtualization level.

I guess you will have some setup to check.
Thanks, I think there may be some confusion. I know how to pass through a device is vsphere... the onboard chipset for SATA is not listed, that's why I made this thread.

I can pass-through my onboard LSI 3008 controller, USB, etc... the motherboard/bios/cpu def. support it :)

Any other ideas?
 

ehfortin

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Nov 1, 2015
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I was not sure if it was the case or not. I asked myself a few times after seeing "it's not on the pass-through list" and I figure it was better to repeat Something you already knew then not saying it and looking for the wrong thing.

Sorry, I don't know for the SATA. I just checked on my server and I don't see the SATA either. Maybe it can't be adressed independantly or it depend of the actual implantation?

Good luck
 

Kal G

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Oct 29, 2014
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I'm not positive on the C610 chipset, but, as ehfortin mentioned in his thread, you'll need to add the Wellsburg controller to /etc/vmware/passthru.map.

You'll need the vendor and device id. Run lspci at the ESXi command line. Look for the line pertaining to your mass storage controller. It will likely be "0000:00:XX.X Mass Storage Controller: Intel Corporation Wellsburg AHCI Controller".

Make a note of the hex prefix (0000:00:XX.X) and then run 'lspci -n'.

Find the line corresponding to the prefix, it'll look something like '0000:00:1f.2 Class 0106: 8086:8d62 [vmhba2]'. That last part, "8086:8d62" in this case, are the vendor and device id.

Then add them to your passthru.map file like so:

# INTEL Wellsburg AHCI
8086 8d62 d3d0 false

VMware reference for VT-D passthrough.
 

Middge

New Member
Mar 5, 2017
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I'm not positive on the C610 chipset, but, as ehfortin mentioned in his thread, you'll need to add the Wellsburg controller to /etc/vmware/passthru.map.

You'll need the vendor and device id. Run lspci at the ESXi command line. Look for the line pertaining to your mass storage controller. It will likely be "0000:00:XX.X Mass Storage Controller: Intel Corporation Wellsburg AHCI Controller".

Make a note of the hex prefix (0000:00:XX.X) and then run 'lspci -n'.

Find the line corresponding to the prefix, it'll look something like '0000:00:1f.2 Class 0106: 8086:8d62 [vmhba2]'. That last part, "8086:8d62" in this case, are the vendor and device id.

Then add them to your passthru.map file like so:

# INTEL Wellsburg AHCI
8086 8d62 d3d0 false

VMware reference for VT-D passthrough.
I literally created an account just to thank you for this. Concise and educated, this solution worked perfectly. Thank you!
 
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mouse

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Mar 3, 2016
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Sorry I won't open a new thread for this
I've a X10SRH-CLN4F (C612), I would to pass the SATA controller to use my 8 HDD directly on my xpenology building VM on ESXI 6.5
It seems I wasn't able to passtrough them (confirmed?), so my question is: if I connect them to the onboard LSI 3008 SAS controller it's possible to pass them?
Really thanks in advance
 

AndroidCat

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Mar 3, 2015
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Kal G,
thanks, this worked like a charm on Supermicro X10SRM-TF (C612). Passed 4 ports (exposed via SFF-8087) out of 10 to FreeNAS.
On this motherboard you can separately pass 4 ports and 6 ports, visible as two independent Wellsburg controllers.
 

zir_blazer

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Dec 5, 2016
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I think no one mentioned it and is worth saying, but LGA 2011/2011-3 Chipsets got TWO independent SATA Controllers, one that has 6 Ports and another 4. You may want to make sure that your disks are in the correct one, if you're only passing one of them. In manuals they are called sSATA and iSATA if I recall correctly, or something like that.
 

AndroidCat

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Mar 3, 2015
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I think no one mentioned it and is worth saying, but LGA 2011/2011-3 Chipsets got TWO independent SATA Controllers, one that has 6 Ports and another 4. You may want to make sure that your disks are in the correct one, if you're only passing one of them. In manuals they are called sSATA and iSATA if I recall correctly, or something like that.
My experience exactly.
 

monte1299

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May 2, 2018
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Hello! I'm trying the exact instructions that Kal G provided in this thread, but I'm not having luck with my C610 controller. My system is a Supermicro X10SRM-F. I have two onboard AHCI controllers (you can see them in the screenshots of my PCI list), as well as another ASMedia SATA controller that I added through a PCI slot. The onboard Intel Wellsburg AHCI Controllers (C610) have 10 total drives attached and I want to pass all 10 to a VM running FreeNAS. ESXi and the FreeNAS VM will run off of the 120GB SSD I have connected to the ASMedia SATA controller. Once FreeNAS is up, I'll expose additional storage from there.

Everything with this setup hinges on getting the Intel AHCI controllers to pass through to the VM. I'm hitting a wall with my troubleshooting efforts. Do you have any ideas?
passthru map.PNG PCI List 1.PNG PCI List 2.PNG
 
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Sisyphe

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Nov 20, 2017
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Hello! I'm trying the exact instructions that Kal G provided in this thread, but I'm not having luck with my C610 controller. My system is a Supermicro X10SRM-F. I have two onboard AHCI controllers (you can see them in the screenshots of my PCI list), as well as another ASMedia SATA controller that I added through a PCI slot. The onboard Intel Wellsburg AHCI Controllers (C610) have 10 total drives attached and I want to pass all 10 to a VM running FreeNAS. ESXi and the FreeNAS VM will run off of the 120GB SSD I have connected to the ASMedia SATA controller. Once FreeNAS is up, I'll expose additional storage from there.

Everything with this setup hinges on getting the Intel AHCI controllers to pass through to the VM. I'm hitting a wall with my troubleshooting efforts. Do you have any ideas?
View attachment 8406 View attachment 8407 View attachment 8408
Are you using ESXi 6.5 and 6.7? It seems that editing passthru.map is not working anymore with 6.7, I have the same issue with an Intel Lynx AHCI controller that was working fine with 6.5.
 

monte1299

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May 2, 2018
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I was attempting this on 6.7. If I had seen your comment earlier, I would have tried 6.5. I've decided to build a separate server for ESXi. It will cost a bit more, but overall I think it will be a cleaner solution. If you do get this working on 6.7, please post your solution though in case anyone else is having this problem.
 

Sonner

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Jan 20, 2016
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