ESXi not seeing raid 1

[MorrisFury]

Hi.

I am a newbie teaching myself vmware using the free version. I am not a linux guru but can navigate my way around. I am having a problem where I am using an Intel server with a raid 1 configuration which includes two sata disks. ESXi does see the two drives but not the raid 1 I configured. When looking at the raid configuration I can see the virtual disk has been initialized. I know it works because I used to have windows on there. Any tips or ideas will be appreciated.

My environment

Server: Intel S5520HC

Raid controller: Intel Embedded Server Raid II (This is the default raid built into the server and I think it is using an LSI chip.)

ESXi version: 5.5.0

[a_p_]

Welcome to the Community,

the RAID controller you are using is a software RAID controller, which requires additional drivers within the OS to work. VMware however only supports real hardware RAID controllers (except for a few controllers where the hardware vendor provides his own drivers) which transparently present the logical volumes to the OS.

André

[MorrisFury]

Thanks Andre.

How would I know if this controller is a "software" controller? I did not need to install drivers when I installed windows on there. But then again windows might contain the driver in it's installation files.

[a_p_]

Most onboard chips provide software RAID only, likely to keep the mainboard's prices low. Anyway, I just searched the Intel web site and found https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/18265/Intel-ESRT-2-SATA-SAS-Software-RAID-driver-for-Windows-.

André

[MorrisFury]

Thanks Andre.

[MorrisFury]

More info