Need help with HP Smart Array P212 RAID controller

[minigranis]

Need some help, end goal is to move from DSM 6.2 to DSM 7.

I am using a HP Gen8 running ESXI, for DSM6.2 I have been using RDM files for disk access (on internal controller), however for DSM7 I would like to use passthrough to a HP Smart Array P212 controller. 
I can build redpill and install DSM7 with no problem using test VMDK files in ESXI but I cant get Redpill/Xpenology to "see" my disk attached to the P212 controller, I have tried (to my knowlegde) to change the satamap / DiskIdxMap to no avail. I have rebuild the redpill kernel after changing from VMDK disks to passthrough controller.
The P212 controller and disk(s) / arrays can be seen in the HP212 bios and in ESXI the controller is passed to my DSM7 virtual machine.

 

So here comes a few basic questions:
From what I can understand P212 do not support ACHI: Does that mean that I will not be able to get this to work in Xpen?

Non of the disks attached to the P212 can be seen in EXSI - Storage - Devices: Should a disk attached to a passthrough controller be seen here ?

Tinycore  seems to see some kind of SCSI (??) device but no attached disk when using ./rploader.sh satamap

 

Any hints as how I can get this to work if its even possible, been messing with this for 2 days now..

 

 

Edited September 2, 2022 by minigranis

[flyride]

An HBA is NOT an AHCI device; therefore it needs a driver.

 

If TinyCore can see your P212, it will only be as a SCSI device.  Therefore you will need to figure out and load an TC extension for the controller driver in order for it to work in DSM via passthrough.

 

You should not see ESXi storage devices on the controller when it is in passthrough mode.

 

There are a lot of posts on this.  Picking the DS3622xs+ platform seems to be the best chances for success as it has the best HBA support.

 

If you can't figure it out, take the controller out of passthrough and if you can see the disk devices in ESXi, you should be able to RDM as a backup option.

[sbv3000]

there is a smart array extension in pocopico's library so this might work if manually added to the build?

 

https://github.com/pocopico/rp-ext/tree/main/hpsa