How to create datastore with ESXi 7.0 and SAS2008

[Jiaxinxi]

I have a SuperMicro CSE-846 with Dual Xeon E5 and LSI SAS2008 on SuperMicro X9 mother board.

Installed ESXi 7.0 on a flash drive and boot from that drive.
Everything looks fine until I want to create the data store.

I am able to see the SAS2008 card in PCI devices, but when I


But when I try to create new storage, the hard drives attached to the SAS2008 is not available.



Nothing is here to pick from



SAS 2008 card is not in the storage adapter list.

Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks in advance!

 

[joddlarn]

The SAS2008 based adapters are no longer supported and there are no drivers.

The physical view of the pcie devices will list all devices, no matter of support.

To use ESXi 7.0 you have to replace the controller and get a supported one.
Or downgrade to 6.7, that still supports SAS2008 based controllers.

 

[Jiaxinxi]

The SAS2008 based adapters are no longer supported and there are no drivers.

The physical view of the pcie devices will list all devices, no matter of support.

To use ESXi 7.0 you have to replace the controller and get a supported one.
Or downgrade to 6.7, that still supports SAS2008 based controllers.

Thanks a lot.

That explains why SAS2008 is not in the adapter list.

I almost pulled my hair off.

For such a popular storage card, I can't believe VMWare just Drop support of it.

Lesson learned.
Thanks again!

 

[Jiaxinxi]

Now I installed Esxi 6.7 U3

I am able to see the drivers connected to SAS2008, but when I create the data store, I am only able to see only 4 drivers?

Is this the limit for evaluation period?

How can I get a free home-use license for Esxi 6.7 now after Esxi 7 is out?

Is it even possible?

 

[zer0sum]

I don't remember there being a drive limit.

I'd switch the cable and see if the other 4 show up

 

[nthu9280]

There is a free license you can get which does not expire. If you need full features, google reset esxi license for steps. It does not work for vcenter just esxi

 

[joddlarn]

Now I installed Esxi 6.7 U3

I am able to see the drivers connected to SAS2008, but when I create the data store, I am only able to see only 4 drivers?

I don't remember there being a drive limit.

I'd switch the cable and see if the other 4 show up

This sounds like a problem I had with a Fujitsu card flashed to IT mode. Only one port worked.
The problem had something to do with the SBR.
Is the card you're trying to use a Fujitsu card flashed to 9211-8i in IT mode?

 

[Jiaxinxi]

This sounds like a problem I had with a Fujitsu card flashed to IT mode. Only one port worked.
The problem had something to do with the SBR.
Is the card you're trying to use a Fujitsu card flashed to 9211-8i in IT mode?

I don't think it is a Fujitsu card.

I moved on. Spent too much time on the installation. There is so many hoops to jump.

I am going to play with Windows 2019 Server a little bit.

Win Server 2019 everything works after the install

May be try Proxmox later

Thanks

 

[Evan]

RHEL8 also drops support for lsi2008, I generally agree dropping old stuff but this does seem a bit strange really. Can’t still buy boards today with these adapters, lower power and reliable, fine for spinning disks.

 

[Jiaxinxi]

Now I see few post here discussing ESXi 7 missing support of nearly 725 hardware. Lsi2008 is in the list.

 

[Net-Runner]

I am managing a bunch of ESXi servers, and most of them have storage controllers that are out of the VMware HCL for 7.0. I have figured out three possible options on how to proceed with them. The first, expensive, and obvious one is a storage controller upgrade. The second one is just to stay with 6.7 for another year or two, especially if the new features presented in 7.0 are not required. The third option is to pass through the storage controller to a virtual machine that runs an operating system that still supports this controller. In the case of Linux, there are distributions tinkered explicitly to serve storage needs like FreeNAS FreeNAS Storage Operating System | Open Source - FreeNAS - Open Source Storage Operating System or UnRAID Unleash Your Hardware. As soon as the storage is present and initialized in a virtual machine, you can feed it down back to ESXi over NFS or iSCSI (preferred). If you are not very familiar with Linux, you can use Windows Server for precisely the same purpose. The NFS and iSCSI offered by Microsoft are crappy, but you can use free Starwinds iSCSI Software Defined Storage for the HCI • StarWind Virtual SAN ® Free as a much better alternative.

 

[zack$]

Sounds interesting, feeding back data to ESXI through freenas. If you ever do it brother, share a post on how it turns out!

This works fine. Been doing it for ages.

 

[TRACKER]

Actually in order ESXi to see it as datastores, you need to share it either as NFS (ESXi can mount NFS share as a datastore) or via ISCSI