Vmware for ProLiant ML310e Gen8

[arcticeye]

Hello everyone,

Good morning, hope you are doing fine.

I've recently acquired a ProLiant ML310e Gen8 server. I read in the compatibility list that I am able to install the Esxi 6. Anyway I would like your opinion. My requisites are:

* I need to use a free Vmware version.

* Better if supports ProLiant ML310e Gen8 RAID controller.

Thank you very much for your help

Kind regards,

Matias

[cykVM]

Hi,

the ML310e Gen8 has a Dynamic Smart Array B120i RAID controller onboard. To make this available to VMWare you need to use the HP customized VMWare installation image (no matter if you install VMWare 5.5 or 6).

The B120i together with the B320i is not on VMWare's HCL and the driver is a partner (HP) supported one, that's why you need to use the customized images.

Prior to any VMWare installation I would run the latest HP SPP (Service Pack for Proliant) and update the server's BIOS and all firmware (iLo, Smart Array, NICs etc.) to the latest.

As for VMWare 6 there are several discussions in VMWare community claiming that the Smart Array B120i/B320i VMWare driver (hpvsa) version 9x is not working correctly and causing either performance issues or host crashes.

If you do not need to intall/use the latest VMWare version 6 you may try to install 5.5 Update 1 HP customized first, this includes verion 88 of hpvsa which is known to be working.

Otherwise you may need to downgrade to an 8x version of the driver after installation.

cykVM

[arcticeye]

Hi Cyk,

Thank you so much for your help.

I will install this image to the server: http://www8.hp.com/us/en/products/servers/solutions.html?compURI=1499005#tab=TAB4

vSphere 5.5 U1 Dec 2014.

One more question. If I install vmware in a micro sd and the i have just 1 disk in the raid array which will be the datastore for virtualmachines, Will I be able to configure raid afterwards? I mean i will start with just 1 HDD in the array. Of do I have to install the 2 disks and configure the raid right away?

Thank you so much,

kind regard,

Matias

[Alistar]

Hi there,

it is best to pre-configure your raid before you make a datastore and place your VMs there - you can not expand a 1-disk "array" further. The least amount disks is 2 for RAID1, 3 for RAID5 and 4 for RAID10. You need to have some redundancy in a case of a disk failure (which will happen sooner or later). So I'd recommend getting at least one other disk, create a RAID array and start using it as a datastore.