Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of HerrBall
HerrBallFlag for United States of America

asked on

ESXi 5.1 host doesn't see SAS 5/e Datastore on Dell MD3000 PowerVault

My VM environment is two Dell R610 PowerEdge servers with MD3000 PowerVault DAS through dual port PCI-e SAS 5/e cards on the servers and dual port SAS controllers on the PowerVault.  
One ESXi 5.1 host sees the datastore on the MD3K, with active and standby path.  Second host doesn't.  Have swapped out the server PCI SAS card - twice.  Have swapped PCI slots, removed/reseated PCI riser. Have swapped cables and controller channels. Reloaded ESXi 3 times - each time all hba storage adapter devices show up in vSphere, including the SAS 5/e.  It, however, does not show any devices or paths on the SAS.  Rescan doesn't find devices/paths either.  Am thinking some kind of software issue, but need help figuring it out. Any ideas?
Avatar of Skyler Kincaid
Skyler Kincaid
Flag of United States of America image

When we had this issue we had to make sure that the firmware was up-to-date on the MD3000. Also make sure that the MD3000 is setup to use both controllers. I think ours only had one controller that we used for the two host.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of Member_2_231077
Member_2_231077

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Avatar of Ahwatukee
Ahwatukee

You may also want to make sure the volume is set to accept multihost connections. Not sure on PV but on EQL the default is to only accept one connection. There is a checkbox in EQL that tells it to allow multiple connections. That could be why your first host sees it and second does not assuming your configs are the same.
Avatar of HerrBall

ASKER

I uploaded a storage array profile.  Hope that helps.

Checked the firmware - it's the most current version, but there are also versions associated with NVSRAM, EMW and AMW that I did not find referenced on the Dell support\downloads site.

I do have concerns about presenting the LUNs, but don't know if what I see is the root problem or a symptom.  Only the working host shows in the disk mapping to the virtual disk as LUN 0.  As virtual disks, Access shows mapped to the storage array and host group as LUN 31.  The host group includes both hosts - but in the config diagram, the working host has a disk cylinder by it, the non-working host doesn't.

Multihost connections?  I have not found that checkbox, but I have created a host group and added 2 hosts.  

Both hosts were connected and working at one time.  In between then and now, I racked the system and inadvertently reversed the 0 and 1 cables on both controllers.  Once I figured out what I did, swapping back still didn't get the second host connected.
DCA-MD3K-8-26-2013.txt
Turns out that the virtual disk and working host LUN was mapped in Dell MDSM as (my only) "standard" connection and the host group (including the non-working host) was mapped as an "access" connection.  I re-mapped the standard connection as the virtual disk/host group with a new LUN.  All is happy after restarting the hosts.

Thanks!