ESXi SSD Compatibility?

[ZzBloopzZ]

Hello,

I plan on building my All-In-One machine soon! I would really like to use ESXi as I want to become more familiar with VMware. The components fully support VT-d and VT-x, and will have the IBM ServeRAID M1015 as pass-through with 8x 3TB Toshiba drives. Also, there will be 2 additional 3TB Toshibas connected to the motherboards onboard Intel SATA controller. I will have these 10x 3TB on a RAIDZ-2 pool.

Now, I also plan to connect a Samsung 830 256GB to the same onboard controller and install ESXi to it. Then I would like to install OI w/ napp-it and some other VM's onto the same SSD. Is this possible and is this how I should be configuring it? I am new to all of this. I am hoping it will work fine with TRIM?

Thank You

 

[Patrick]

If you can, may save you some trouble to do a second IBM ServeRAID M1015 and just pass the controllers through, then leave the Samsung SSD on the motherboard port.

 

[ZzBloopzZ]

If I may kindly ask, what kind of possible trouble could adding another M1015 save me? I will never be adding more than 10 drives to this server due chassis limitations.

I'm already way over budget on this project, but that is naturally my fault due to not allocating enough time on researching. :c(

 

[xnoodle]

You wouldn't be able to pass-through the SATA controller for the additional two drives, as youl would be using it for the ESXi datastore.

If you add another M1015, you can connect the extra two drives to it and pass through the controller as well.

If you only want to use one M1015, you can perhaps run OI as your OS w/ napp-it and then run virtualbox for your VMs?

 

[McKajVah]

Buy a motherboard with Intel c204 chipset. Most of these have 2xsata-3 and 4xsata-2. On my Tyan motherboard these are seen as separate controllers and you can choose to pass through either of them and use the other for Esxi datastore. Together with the M1015 you will get 10 or 12 drives for pass through and 2 or 4 for Esxi datastore.

 

[gea]

Buy a motherboard with Intel c204 chipset. Most of these have 2xsata-3 and 4xsata-2. On my Tyan motherboard these are seen as separate controllers and you can choose to pass through either of them and use the other for Esxi datastore. Together with the M1015 you will get 10 or 12 drives for pass through and 2 or 4 for Esxi datastore.

As far as I know, they are one the same PCI-e device.
You can only pass-through complete devices so that seems not possible.

 

[badatSAS]

As far as I know, they are one the same PCI-e device.
You can only pass-through complete devices so that seems not possible.

On my Intel S1200BTLR (C204 based) ESXi sees "Intel Corporation Cougar Point 6 port SATA AHCI Controller" as a single passthrough capable device, as gea said.

You could always add another PCIe SATA controller, although I haven't seen a lot of detail on using those with VT-d

 

[McKajVah]

On my Intel S1200BTLR (C204 based) ESXi sees "Intel Corporation Cougar Point 6 port SATA AHCI Controller" as a single passthrough capable device, as gea said.

You could always add another PCIe SATA controller, although I haven't seen a lot of detail on using those with VT-d

I'll double check and report back...

 

[McKajVah]

On my Intel S1200BTLR (C204 based) ESXi sees "Intel Corporation Cougar Point 6 port SATA AHCI Controller" as a single passthrough capable device, as gea said.

You could always add another PCIe SATA controller, although I haven't seen a lot of detail on using those with VT-d

You are 100% correct. I've been using my Mainboard in IDE-mode and ESXi actually show two different boxes you can "check" individually and pass either one through. But as they are on the same "sub" PCI-adress, it doesn't actually work when you try to connect a disk to the "pass-through" controller.

Hopefully nobody bought anything on my wrong recommandations. I'm sorry.

 

[badatSAS]

You are 100% correct. I've been using my Mainboard in IDE-mode and ESXi actually show two different boxes you can "check" individually and pass either one through. But as they are on the same "sub" PCI-adress, it doesn't actually work when you try to connect a disk to the "pass-through" controller.

Hopefully nobody bought anything on my wrong recommandations. I'm sorry.

Worst case scenario someone will have to add a PCIe SATA card, still a good chipset =)

 

[ZzBloopzZ]

Deleted this comment, better to make a new thread.