This morning I got a Supermicro AOC-SAS2LP-H8iR (LSI SAS 2108) RAID0/1/5/6 controller to play with. VMware has a driver for it (http://downloads.vmware.com/d/details/dt_esxi50_lsi_2108_v534/dHRAYnRqZWRiZHAlZA==), but I'm unable to use it.

The tiny readme tells me to run
When? Where? How?

When I boot from the installation CD (or PXE) I eventually come to the "Select a Disk to Install or Upgrade" panel, which shows no local storage devices. Using Alt-F1 I can login, `wget´ the VIB into /tmp and then run the command. But it only shows "Connect to localhost failed".



Do you have any clue? I'm a complete newcommer to ESXi 5.

I tried with the ESXi Customizer v2.6.2, but the controller is stil not recognized.

When you boot with image made with ESXi Customizer, I would access the console and
1) verify that the driver is in place and is the correct version (ESXi already has a version of the driver natively)
cd /usr/lib/vmware/vmkmod
vmkload_mod megaraid_sas -s

2) Look at the log file /var/log/vmkernel.log to see if the driver was loaded and if any errors or information was logged.

3) You can try loading the driver manually (using vmkload_mod). After you do that run lspci -p to see if your device is listed and has the module loaded

I did it again. Whatever went wrong the first time, now the Supermicro AOC-SAS2LP-H8iR is working with ESXi 5. The test equipment was

- Asus M4A78-E
- AMD Phenom II X4 965
- 4x4GiB DDR2-800
- Supermicro AOC-SAS2LP-H8iR
- Intel 82574L PCIe, because the onboard NIC is not recognized (yet?)

Now I'll try with ESXi 4.1...

Works. Posted in the whitelist: http://www.vm-help.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=3551.

BUT you have no sensor/health status - neither in a direct connection nor over a vCenter server!

So you have no clue if all drives and volumes are healthy or not. For me that renders this controller unusable for ESXi 5.

FYI: ESXi 4.1 U1 does show a complete sensor/health status for the Supermicro controller.