[FIXED - ID10T user error] ESXi LSI HBA controller passthrough - No disks visible


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Hello

I know this is an unsupported setup but I'm hoping someone can shed some light on the issue I'm experiencing. I have unRAID set up in ESXi. The general system works well. I boot directly off of the USB drive, so no PLOP boot manager, simple USB passthrough. I have also passed through my PCI NIC, which works since I can access my setup, so PCI passthrough seems to be working as far as NIC's go

I have an LSI 9211-8i, bought with IT-mode enabled from a vendor that only sells IT-mode HBA's and is very popular. I have passed this through to the unRAID VM as well and the controller is seen by unRAID and properly identified, it is visible in the system devices menu and I am even able to trigger passthrough to an unRAID VM, though I of course don't want that. However, my disks don't appear to be detected. I have searched for hours but since I'm very new to unRAID, I struggle to find the proper logs to comb through in search of a cause. The disks are spun up (you can feel this) and I have replaced the breakout cable already to rule that out. The cables I'm using are the proper SAS->SATA breakout cables. I have also tried swapping to the second port on the controller

I'm hoping someone here can take a look at my diagnostic bundle and shed some light. If more information is needed I will of course provide it. Diagnostic bundle attached

Thanks in advance!

*edit*
As you can probably see in the diagnostic bundle, I am currently running a trial license. I have already bought a real license but decided I would first make sure this setup is stable before I activated that. I assume the functionality is identical between the two, so this should not be a factor in this issue

*edit 2*
I have verified in the BIOS that the HBA is set to IT-mode and is properly recognized
 

unraidserver-diagnostics-20230101-1412.zip

Edited by BlueBull
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Alright, so I am apparently a gigantic moron. While I have been building PC's and servers for 20 years, I did not know that SATA power cables are not interchangeable between different PSU manufacturers. They will sometimes fit PSU's by different manufacturers because the connector is shared between some of them but for some reason the pinout of the PSU is not standardized and most manufacturers use a different one, sometimes even between different PSU models by the same manufacturer. So, I apparently blew up 4 x 12TB drives, ouch :( 

I noticed indeed that they didn't even appear in the BIOS when connected to onboard SATA. These were WD shucked drives so initially I thought that the 3.3V pin would need to be covered, even though that shouldn't be needed anymore with newer WD drives. When that also didn't work even after removing the pin altogether, I went looking further and encountered someone that had blown up a drive because he used a SATA power cable from another manufacturer. This made me check and surprise, surprise, one of the cables was not like the others and it was the cable I had used to connect these new drives. How that cable got mixed in with the rest I do not know, but it is a Seasonic one while this particular PSU is a Corsair one. So yeah, this was a grave ID10T user error

I'm going to leave this up so someone else might learn from my mistake. Never, ever use power cables on a PSU that did not come with that specific PSU. Lesson learned, even though it was a very expensive lesson, it will make sure I never make that mistake again

Edited by BlueBull
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  • BlueBull changed the title to [FIXED - ID10T user error] ESXi LSI HBA controller passthrough - No disks visible

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