Adaptec 6405e experience in ESXi

[sotech]

Well, we picked one of these up as it seemed like the most useful thing we could stick in the x1 slot in our ESXi server...

...and it works like a charm (so far.. it's only been a day or two) once the driver found here is added to esxi:

http://downloads.vmware.com/d/details/dt_esx41_pmc_aacraid_11728000/ZCV0YnR0aipiZColcA==

I don't make a habit of benchmarking drive speeds so I haven't done any yet - if anyone has any questions or wants us to run any benchmarks ask and I'll do them when I have time. I'm not buying this controller for crazy speeds, just for the addition of 4 drives to the server that aren't going to break 500MB/s combined.

 

[Patrick]

Great information! Thanks! How is the cache configured? All read since no BBU?

 

[sotech]

You have the option to configure the cache for both reading and writing; irrespective of what you choose you get a warning sign about potential data loss if you configure it for writes thanks to the lack of BBU. I set it as read only.

Also, if anyone needs to know - it works fine in an Asus P8B WS.

I was in a hurry when putting it together and didn't read the documentation beyond what was necessary at the time... next time I get free time I need to find out how (if it's possible) to access the raid setup without rebooting the host.

 

[zerrax]

Hi Sotech,

I also bought the Adaptec 6405E card, and build it in a Asus P5Q Pro computer running VMWare ESXI 4.1
The card is connected to 4x 2T SATA discs in RAID 10 configuration.

But I couldn't get the special VMWare drivers working correctly on my system
The ISO drivers are burned on a CD:
vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-aacraid_400.4.1.7.28000-1OEM.374162.iso

And I put the the CD into the DVD/Bluray drive of the ESXi 4.1 host
But I don't know how to Mount the driver CD...

How did you installed the driver of this raid controller?

 

[sotech]

Hi Zerrax;

I did it via the command line interface which I installed on the same computer (or VM, actually) which I was running the vSphere Client in. I simply put the CD with the driver .zip into that system, used vSphere Client to put the ESXi box into maintenance mode and executed the following command in the CLI:

vihostupdate.pl --server xx.xx.xx.xx --install --bundle D:/path/to/zip/file.zip
username:
password:

and it installed then prompted me to reboot the system.

Does that make sense?

 

[sotech]

Alright - updated the ESXi box to 5.0 today and had to reinstall the driver; the process is definitely different but the card works just as well.

After downloading the driver from:

http://downloads.vmware.com/d/detai...ra_scsi_aacraid_51728300/dCV0YnRqKnRidGVkZQ==

I extracted the offline bundle .zip and uploaded it to a datastore on the ESXi box. Then I had to update the CLI to the latest version, uninstalling the previous one. The vihostupdate commands now appears to be defunct and have been replaced by esxcli.

Then I ran:

esxcli -s 10.10.1.150 -u root -p PASSWORD software vib install -d [datastore]filename.zip

Restart the host and all is good again.

Hope that helps someone else - took up a couple of hours of my time blundering around

 

[Patrick]

I really do wish VMware would finally decide to make drivers/ HCL a bit easier to work with. It always seems that unless you are doing a vanilla supported config you spend hours on Google finding fixes.

 

[sotech]

I really do wish VMware would finally decide to make drivers/ HCL a bit easier to work with. It always seems that unless you are doing a vanilla supported config you spend hours on Google finding fixes.

Yeah - I was really expecting that to be a lot less effort, all things considered. I actually found it took me a lot less time with the 4.1 drivers as you didn't need them to be on a local datastore... and since my datastores were on drives attached to the Adaptec card I had to grab a spare drive and unplug one of the normally-passed-through onboard SATA drives, add the spare drive as a datastore and upload the file to there... Kind of a PITA for something which seems like it ought to be easy.

 

[tiger188]

hi,

I have problem with controller 6405, maybe u can help me.
I installed vmware drivers, but still experiencing this problem

http://i.imgur.com/wfY2J.jpg

 

[sotech]

Is that screenshot from ESXi or from a VM? Either way I'm not going to be of much help there but someone else may be able to assist.

Which version of ESXi are you using? Which driver did you use?

hi,

I have problem with controller 6405, maybe u can help me.
I installed vmware drivers, but still experiencing this problem

http://i.imgur.com/wfY2J.jpg

 

[tiger188]

Is that screenshot from ESXi or from a VM? Either way I'm not going to be of much help there but someone else may be able to assist.

Which version of ESXi are you using? Which driver did you use?

Currently im using 5.0 with last patches, previous versions dosen't support my NIC ;/

I changed Raid 5 -> raid 1 but error still occur.


more details form conversation :


esxcli storage core path list

usb.vmhba32-usb.0:0-mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0
UID: usb.vmhba32-usb.0:0-mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0
Runtime Name: vmhba32:C0:T0:L0
Device: mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0
Device Display Name: Local USB Direct-Access (mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0)
Adapter: vmhba32
Channel: 0
Target: 0
LUN: 0
Plugin: NMP
State: active
Transport: usb
Adapter Identifier: usb.vmhba32
Target Identifier: usb.0:0
Adapter Transport Details: Unavailable or path is unclaimed
Target Transport Details: Unavailable or path is unclaimed

pscsi.vmhba1-pscsi.0:0-mpx.vmhba1:C0:T0:L0
UID: pscsi.vmhba1-pscsi.0:0-mpx.vmhba1:C0:T0:L0
Runtime Name: vmhba1:C0:T0:L0
Device: mpx.vmhba1:C0:T0:L0
Device Display Name: Local Adaptec Disk (mpx.vmhba1:C0:T0:L0)
Adapter: vmhba1
Channel: 0
Target: 0
LUN: 0
Plugin: NMP
State: active
Transport: parallel
Adapter Identifier: pscsi.vmhba1
Target Identifier: pscsi.0:0
Adapter Transport Details: Unavailable or path is unclaimed
Target Transport Details: Unavailable or path is unclaimed


esxcli storage core path list -d mpx.vmhba1:C0:T0:L0

pscsi.vmhba1-pscsi.0:0-mpx.vmhba1:C0:T0:L0
UID: pscsi.vmhba1-pscsi.0:0-mpx.vmhba1:C0:T0:L0
Runtime Name: vmhba1:C0:T0:L0
Device: mpx.vmhba1:C0:T0:L0
Device Display Name: Local Adaptec Disk (mpx.vmhba1:C0:T0:L0)
Adapter: vmhba1
Channel: 0
Target: 0
LUN: 0
Plugin: NMP
State: active
Transport: parallel
Adapter Identifier: pscsi.vmhba1
Target Identifier: pscsi.0:0
Adapter Transport Details: Unavailable or path is unclaimed
Target Transport Details: Unavailable or path is unclaimed



critical error which causes error

http://i.imgur.com/zgPpJ.jpg

and kernel log
http://wklej.to/gyr0k

 

[sotech]

That's well beyond my troubleshooting abilities - maybe someone else will be able to help!