I also saw this. Community NVMe Driver for ESXi Not sure if this would help us in the future as well with this issue.
PSA: Vmware ESXi 7.0 does not like consumer NVMe drives
- Thread starter zer0sum
- Start date
Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.
Just an update; this still works fine on the newest ESXI 7.
Does anyone know if it works on ESXI 8? I'm a bit afraid to upgrade to 8.
Does anyone know if it works on ESXI 8? I'm a bit afraid to upgrade to 8.
感谢这个方法，非常有用！I just found out that ESXi 7.0 is really particular about the brand of NVMe drive you try to use.
And it was an issue on earlier versions but it seems to be even stricter now
My Intel 660P works perfectly, but my Adata XPG SX8200 and HP EX920 do not work at all
I believe most Intel and Samsung drives like 970's should work fine at least
YMMW with other brands on the official HCL - Cisco, Dell, HPE, HGST, Hitachi, Huawei, Intel, Lenovo, Micron, Oracle, Samsung, ScaleFlux, SKHynix, WD
If anyone has other brands working please comment and we can start to create a list.
In previous versions of ESXi you could run a couple of commands to load older nvme drivers like this:
But on ESXi 7.0 that somehow kills all of your network card drivers and your box is now a shiny paperweight
Anyone know of any further hacks/tweaks to get it work?
我的 Homelab 使用 R730XD，使用 internal SD 作为 ESXi 6.7 boot，PERC H730需要 passthrough 给 Truenas使用，因此无法使用SAS磁盘作为 ESXi Data Store，使用您的方法，成功将 PCIE nvme磁盘驱动成功！ thanks again.
Attachments
Thank you so much! I had no luck with a copy of an old driver, but this driver seems to work.
Which version of ESXI are you on? Because this driver still works fine for me on the latest patch of ESXI 7
That is because the drives have Samsung and Phison controllers.
My drive uses SMI and Silicon Motion isn't supported in the new ESXI.
Honestly I came up with this last night based on the screenshot you posted. Vs my own ESXI instances using SMI controllers.Well, nowhere in the thread did it specify the Phison controller so...
Perhaps the thread title should be changed.
Have you tried this?
Flings
flings.vmware.com
I know that Samsung controllers still work, you confirming that Phison controllers do work (someone else mentioned other drives) like @StevenDTX who said that Sandisk SN570 drives worked (WD Controller).
Although what is weird is that @dante4 mentioned that his Kingston drive worked; yet it has the same SMI controller as my Mushkin Pilot-E which I already know NEEDS the old driver to work.
Along with @cli-networks who mentioned that SN550 drives don't work.
So it seems that Samsung controllers all work; Sandisk/WD Controllers PARTIALLY work and with your post certain Phison controllers work.
The part I find the most interesting is that 2263EN works based on @dante4 but 2262EN doesn't work (from my own experiences). They are all from the "same generation" and 2262EN is actually the "flagship" controller where 2263EN is the cut down 4-channel one.
The title of this post shouldn't be changed, because upon further investigation; it doesn't seem to matter your drive brand unless maybe its Samsung because otherwise it is hit and miss.
Maybe it has to do with DDR3 on the controller vs DDR4 since the Kingston drive has DDR4 and the Mushkin has DDR3.
Soon I will test ESXI with a PNY XLR8 and report back.
Yeah it is definitely some consumer drives. I haven't figured out what actually makes it work or not but I thought I had figured it out last night. Either way I'm glad that the driver still works today and my servers are running fine.