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Disk capacity limitation for RDM in VMWARE Workstation


viumden

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Is that so in VMWARE WORKSTAION, by using RDM, only disks smaller than 2 TB can be used? I added 2 4T WD NAS disks and add them by using SCSI interface, the disk can be detected, but seems cannot be read/write correctly, and in the end it causes disk break... (S.M.A.R.T warning emerged).

And then I read below documentation:

http://pubs.vmware.com/workstation-12/i ... 48D2F.html

 

Anyone have similar experience? Or 2T disk will work totally OK?

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2TB working well and stable, yes sir. And because xpenology couldn't control HDDs, those drives had no spin down. After a year 24/7, 3 of 6 my HDDs dead. So, I only go back to VM when and only when VW workstation or whatever virtual machines can let me see S.M.A.R.T.

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When you use physical RDM mapping, SMART data is beeing passed -through. The virtual scsi controller that is presented to the VM is the problem. DSM doesn't have the right driver for it, hence it cannot read the SMART data. You can try installing vmtools in DSM and see if there is a change. If not, somebody must write a driver for vmware paravirt/ lsi sas/parallel for DSM.

 

You can always passthrough the whole controller to the VM with intel vt-d for DSM direct access to the controller.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I think in Jun's loader, vmw_pvscsi is loaded in VMWARE workstation, and the disks passed to DSM is with correct driver, just S.M.A.R.T information is not passed and maybe APM functionality is not possible through vmw_pvscsi, so disk spin-down is not possible when DSM is in idle for a long time.

And I found 4T works in RDM too (identified and formatted with btrfs and RAID5 correctely), although in the document it claims only 2T and smaller is supported.

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Hi viumden,

 

May I ask what is your configuration?

 

I am using HP Gen8 + ESXi 6.0 U1 + 4 TB * 4 with RDM. ACHI is used instead of the onboard RAID. When I map the 4 HDD to XPEnology, the VM cannot start up and return the error about the RDM file cannot be locked.

 

Thanks

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