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ESXi 5 & Areca 1230 - Cannot see array

A

afterlife

n00b
Joined
Oct 20, 2011
Messages
12
Hi Guys,

Long time lurker first time poster : )

I've just recently set up my ESXi box and I'm having difficulty with the following:
I have an array of 5 drives in RAID 6 on my Areca 1230 and I'd like to pass it thru
to a VM I have as my 'fileserver' (I'm running the install/inventory on onboard sata).

I can get the PCIe device 'passed thru' as it were and I can see it in Linux (Debian x64)
but -and heres the kicker- I can't see my array!

Any idea why this might be happening?

Specs as below:
  • 2x AMD Opteron 2389 Shanghai Quad core CPU's @ 2.90GHz
  • Supermicro H8DII+-F Motherboard
  • 24GB (12x2GB) DDR2 ECC PC5300 (667) Memory
  • Areca ARC-1230 PCIe RAID Controller (1GB ECC DDR RAM)
  • 5x Hitachi 2TB 7K3000 HDS723020BLA642
  • PCPower&Cooling 1KW Turbo PSU
  • Norco 4U RPC-4116 Case

Software:
  • VMWare ESXi 5 (VMware-VMvisor-Installer-5.0.0-469512.x86_64 to be specific!)
  • VMWare VSphere client
  • Debian 2.6 x64 Latest Netinstall client

lspci
0b:00.0 RAID bus controller: Areca Technology Corp. ARC-1230 12-Port PCI-Express to SATA RAID Controller

Will post some pics in the multi proc thread hehe.
Thanks guys!

EDIT: Pics here :) http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1037921277&postcount=954
 
Last edited:
peetz said:
Another option is to use the Areca-controller and the attached hard disks directly with ESXi 5.0.
There is a ESXi 5.0-driver available directly from Areca here:

http://www.areca.com.tw/support/s_vmware/vmware.htm

The zip-file for ESXi 5.0 includes a vib-file that you can apply with my ESXi-Customizer script.

- Andreas
Click to expand...

I'm not sure that achieves quite what I'm after but I tried it none the less.
I get as far as installing the vib file but it complains about not finding a certificate
I have set my vmware to accept "Community" level files but no dice?
 
If you install the ESXi 5.0 driver you will be able to create VMFS datastores on the disks that are attached to the Areca controller. And on the VMFS datastores you can create virtual disks and attach them to your fileserver (or any other) VM.

One way to get this working is to create a custom install ISO with ESXi-Customizer and the vib-file, and then re-install the machine with that ISO.
If you don't want to re-install the box you can install the vib from an ESXi shell by using the command
esxcli software vib install -v VIBURL
VIBURL must reference a local copy of the vib file or an http-link to it.

- Andreas
 
Or set up an NFS share on a windows or linux server and mount that in ESXi. Put the .vib in there and install it from there. Then you'll have access to the volumes on the areca card. Create a VMFS datastore on one of those volumes. I've got a 1210 setup with a mirror this way. ESXi boots from a USB key and then the areca has a 2-drive RAID1 mirror on it for the subsequent VMs that run on the machine.

You can also add the --no-sig-check option to the command, that'd get around a driver being unsigned.

Sorry for necro-posting but I figured someone else might run across this thread later.
 
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