{"id":958,"date":"2020-09-01T12:35:42","date_gmt":"2020-09-01T17:35:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zewwy.ca\/?p=958"},"modified":"2021-09-14T12:03:07","modified_gmt":"2021-09-14T17:03:07","slug":"managing-hpe-storage-controllers-on-vmware-esxi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zewwy.ca\/index.php\/2020\/09\/01\/managing-hpe-storage-controllers-on-vmware-esxi\/","title":{"rendered":"Managing HPE Storage controllers on VMware ESXi"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span>HPE Storage on ESXi<\/span><\/h1>\n

<\/span>Quick Overview<\/span><\/h2>\n

Assumptions, Device drivers and tools are already on the ESXi host as servers such as these running on ESXi should be using authorized image<\/a>s from the vendor and on the Hardware Compatibility List (HCL).<\/p>\n

If not use this guys blog<\/a> on how to manually install the tools that should otherwise already be on the server in question.<\/p>\n

I recently decided to double check some server setups running for testing. Since it was all tests I figured I’d talk about some of the implications of simple misconfigurations or even just the unexpected.<\/p>\n

Most of these commands I used from following Kalle’s blog and the command list was super useful<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/span>List PCI Devices<\/span><\/h2>\n

To start if you are in a hoop and need to find what storage controller is in use by the hypervisor, run this to list all the devices (least the ones on the PCI bus)<\/p>\n

lspci -vvv<\/pre>\n
This will present you this a long list of devices for my test device (an HP DL385 Gen8) it turned out to be an HP Smart Array P420i:<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
That’s cool.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Storage Config<\/span><\/h2>\n
To see the current config run:<\/p>\n
\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl all show config<\/pre>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
This shows to me what I already knew, I have 2 logical drives both created with RAID 1+0 tolerance with different amount of different sized drives. In this case one from 4 900 Gig SAS drives, and the other from 12 300 Gig SAS drives.<\/p>\n
From this information we can’t determine the speed of the drives.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Controller Status<\/span><\/h2>\n
To view the status of the controller:<\/p>\n
\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl all show status<\/pre>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
From this we can tell the type of controller, double verifying the results from the lspci command and that there is cache available. Still not sure at this point what type of cache we are dealing with. Our goal is to use the Battery Based Write Cache for the logical volumes.. but we still have some things to cover before we get there.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl all show detail<\/pre>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
with these details we get to see more of the juicy information, here we can tell we have a cache board for the controller available in “slot 0” as indicated by the “slot” attribute.<\/p>\n
Also note the Drive Write Cache, which is when the physical drive itself enables cacheing. However, we again, want to use the BBWC to prevent data loss in the event of a power outage as to not leave our VM’s with corrupted virtual drives. Read this thread on a bit more details about this<\/a>.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Physical Disk Status<\/span><\/h2>\n
To view all the disks and if they are OK:<\/p>\n
\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 pd all show status<\/pre>\n
in my case they were all OK.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Physical Disk Details<\/span><\/h2>\n
Now this is where we get to see more details on those SAS disks I talked about ealier:<\/p>\n
\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 pd all show detail<\/pre>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
here we can tell now that the 300 Gig SAS disk is a 10K SAS disk, not bad… \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
<\/span>Logical Drive Status<\/span><\/h2>\n
Run this to get a very basic status report of the logical drives created from all the physical drives.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 ld all show status<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
<\/span>Logical Drive Details<\/span><\/h2>\n
Change the all to the logical volume ID number, in this case 2 for the 300 Gig based array.<\/p>\n
\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 ld 2 show<\/pre>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
Just to how the difference against the logical disk I know I enabled cache on and has unreal better performance…<\/p>\n
\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 ld 1 show<\/pre>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
Now I created these logical drives during the boot of the server using the BIOS\/EFUI tools on the system. Lucky though we can adjust these settings right from the esxcli. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
<\/span>Enable Logical Write Cache<\/span><\/h2>\n
Just like magic:<\/p>\n
\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 logicaldrive 2 modify arrayaccelerator=enable<\/pre>\n
Being specific to change logical drive 2 which was the one that did not have cache enabled originally… checking it after running the above command shows it has cache! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
<\/span>SSD SmartPath Caveat<\/span><\/h2>\n
One thing I noticed when playing with SSDs in HPE servers…<\/p>\n
Here’s a post about why SSD Smart path is not always a good choice<\/a>. (Note its down have to use Google cache).<\/p>\n
I’ll let these graphs speak for themselves…<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
Latency went from SmartPath 14ms, No Cache 9ms, BBWC 4ms while doing the cloning operation. With BBWC it completed so fast I didn’t even need to cancel. 10x performance increase.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Interesting Side Story<\/span><\/h1>\n
I was going over this blog post while checking storage on my homelabs DL380 G6. I had it powered off for a while and I noticed some terrible latency times on the write operations on the datastore as I was vMotioning a VM to it. As it turns out the battery write cache doesn’t charge the battery when the server is powered off<\/a> and still plugged in.<\/p>\n
For me to took about n hour n a half to 2 hours for the battery status to change and the write cache to become enabled. I’ll let this chart speak for itself as well…<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
I also found this really cool hack<\/a> if you have a dead BBWC battery you can hack it to use regular batteries. This is so cool I kinda wish I remembered what I did with the old dead one I had…<\/p>\n
<\/span>All Commands<\/span><\/h2>\n
Just incase Kalle’s site goes down here’s the list he shared for both ESXi 5.x and 6.x<\/p>\n
Show configuration<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl all show config\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl all show config<\/pre>\n
Controller status<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl all show status\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl all show status<\/pre>\n
Show detailed controller information for all controllers<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl all show detail\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl all show detail<\/pre>\n
Show detailed controller information for controller in slot 0<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 show detail\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 show detail<\/pre>\n
Rescan for New Devices<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli rescan\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli rescan<\/pre>\n
Physical disk status<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 pd all show status\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 pd all show status<\/pre>\n
Show detailed physical disk information<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 pd all show detail\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 pd all show detail<\/pre>\n
Logical\u00a0disk status<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 ld all show status\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 ld all show status<\/pre>\n
View Detailed Logical Drive Status<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 ld 2 show\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 ld 2 show<\/pre>\n
Create New RAID 0 Logical Drive<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 create type=ld drives=1I:1:2 raid=0\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 create type=ld drives=1I:1:2 raid=0<\/pre>\n
Create New RAID 1 Logical Drive<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 create type=ld drives=1I:1:1,1I:1:2 raid=1\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 create type=ld drives=1I:1:1,1I:1:2 raid=1<\/pre>\n
Create New RAID 5 Logical Drive<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 create type=ld drives=1I:1:1,1I:1:2,2I:1:6,2I:1:7,2I:1:8 raid=5\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 create type=ld drives=1I:1:1,1I:1:2,2I:1:6,2I:1:7,2I:1:8 raid=5<\/pre>\n
Delete Logical Drive<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 ld 2 delete\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 ld 2 delete<\/pre>\n
Add New Physical Drive to Logical Volume<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 ld 2 add drives=2I:1:6,2I:1:7\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 ld 2 add drives=2I:1:6,2I:1:7<\/pre>\n
Add Spare Disks<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 array all add spares=2I:1:6,2I:1:7\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 array all add spares=2I:1:6,2I:1:7<\/pre>\n
Enable Drive Write Cache<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 modify dwc=enable\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 modify dwc=enable<\/pre>\n
Disable Drive Write Cache<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 modify dwc=disable\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 modify dwc=disable<\/pre>\n
Erase Physical Drive<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 pd 2I:1:6 modify erase\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 pd 2I:1:6 modify erase<\/pre>\n
Turn on Blink Physical Disk LED<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 ld 2 modify led=on\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 ld 2 modify led=on<\/pre>\n
Turn off Blink Physical Disk LED<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 ld 2 modify led=off\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 ld 2 modify led=off<\/pre>\n
Modify smart array cache read and write ratio (cacheratio=readratio\/writeratio)<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 modify cacheratio=100\/0\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 modify cacheratio=100\/0<\/pre>\n
Enable smart array write cache when no battery is present (No-Battery Write Cache option)<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 modify nbwc=enable\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 modify nbwc=enable<\/pre>\n
Disable smart array cache for certain\u00a0Logical Volume<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 logicaldrive 1 modify arrayaccelerator=disable\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 logicaldrive 1 modify arrayaccelerator=disable<\/pre>\n
Enable\u00a0smart array cache for certain\u00a0Logical Volume<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 logicaldrive 1 modify arrayaccelerator=enable\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 logicaldrive 1 modify arrayaccelerator=enable<\/pre>\n
Enable SSD Smart Path<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 array a modify ssdsmartpath=enable\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 array a modify ssdsmartpath=enable<\/pre>\n
Disable\u00a0SSD Smart Path<\/strong>\r\nESXi 5.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/hp\/hpssacli\/bin\/hpssacli ctrl slot=0 array a modify ssdsmartpath=disable\r\nESXi 6.5 ->\u00a0\/opt\/smartstorageadmin\/ssacli\/bin\/ssacli ctrl slot=0 array a modify ssdsmartpath=disable<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HPE Storage on ESXi Quick Overview Assumptions, Device drivers and tools are already on the ESXi host as servers such as these running on ESXi should be using authorized images from the vendor and on the Hardware Compatibility List (HCL). If not use this guys blog on how to manually install the tools that should … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “Managing HPE Storage controllers on VMware ESXi”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8,7],"tags":[202,210,295],"class_list":["post-958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hypervisors","category-server-administration","category-storage","tag-hp","tag-hpe","tag-ssacli"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zewwy.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zewwy.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zewwy.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zewwy.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zewwy.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=958"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/zewwy.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1220,"href":"https:\/\/zewwy.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958\/revisions\/1220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zewwy.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zewwy.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zewwy.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}