[olug] Linux friendly SATA RAID controller

[Sean Kelly]

Here are the I/O and Storage Hardware Compatibility Lists (HCLs) for
the current version of ESX 3.

I/O: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_io_guide.pdf
Storage/SAN: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_san_guide.pdf

One thing to beware of is that ESX 3.5, coming soon-ish, will actually
support SATA as well as have a ton of new cool features:

http://www.vmware.com/products/vi/whatsnew.html

I believe it is due out sometime in December. Overall, we've been pretty
happy with ESX. We have four ESX servers and a VirtualCenter server. We
make use of VMware DRS, HA, Consolidated Backup, and all of the various
Enterprise level features.


On Wed, Oct 31, 2007 at 02:32:28PM -0500, Daniel Linder wrote:
> On September 11, 2007 Shawn Mattingly wrote:
> > Adaptec's drivers have gotten a lot better...to the point of being
> > accepted by the kernel hackers for inclusion into the mainline kernel. I
> > have been eyeing the Adaptec RAID 3405 for purchase:
> >
> > http://www.adaptec.com/en-US/products/sas_cards/value/SAS-3405/
> 
> Hi, I'm bringing up this thread again. :-)
> 
> I'm needing to play with VMWare ESX Server 3 on the cheap.  The ESX
> installer specifically checks for certain features of the driver, one in
> particular is that the HDD controller returns that it is a SCSI
> controller.
> 
> >From this URL (http://www.vmprofessional.com/index.php?content=sata_faq),
> it appears that ESX is happy enough with some of the SATA controllers that
> use the SCSI driver.
> 
> That page lists that a "Adaptec 2610SA" and the "Dell Cerc 1.5/6ch" cards
> are compatible as far as the installer goes.  The Adaptec/Dell card are
> fairly cheap on eBay - anywhere from $80 to $150 - and are a true hardware
> RAID from what I can tell.
> 
> Now for my question...
> 
> Does anyone have a server with either of those cards installed that I
> could persuade to boot off of the ESX iso install image (note 1) and see
> if it complains about the HDDs or continues?
> 
> Dan
> 
> Note 1: ESX Server 3 install image iso link:
> http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/eval.html
> 
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Sean Kelly          | PGP KeyID: D2E5E296
smkelly at smkelly.org | http://www.smkelly.org