[Solved] Unraid fails to access VMWare provisioned virtual HDDs

[doron]

Unraid (6.8.3) seems to fail when accessing an ESXi-provisioned hard drive. What I get, for each such drive, is:

Tower emhttpd: device /dev/sde problem getting id

Subsequently these drives are not seen by anything Unraid (can't be used via UD plugin, can't be assigned as array cache etc.).

They are perfectly workable otherwise - I can access / format / read / write them with no issue from the underlying OS - but I really want them to be usable under UD and as cache drives.

 

Do others see the same behavior? 

Any chance we can get Limetech to fix that?

 

EDIT: Just to be clear, this has not been the behavior in the past - VMWare provisioned drives were perfectly usable throughout Unraid. Can't testify as to when it started - I can try to triangulate with different versions if that'll prove helpful.

Edited March 14, 2020 by doron

[uldise]

what do you mean by "ESXi-provisioned hard drive"? thin provisioned virtual drive ?

[doron]

2 hours ago, uldise said:

what do you mean by "ESXi-provisioned hard drive"? thin provisioned virtual drive ?

Yes, either thin or thick provisioned actually. Just any virtual drive.

Edited March 14, 2020 by doron

[uldise]

4 hours ago, doron said:

Just any virtual drive.

and previous versions of unraid are working ok with the same drive? i have virtual drive as cache drive on my unraid server, and it works just fine. but i'm still on version 6.6.6 in that VM

[doron]

and previous versions of unraid are working ok with the same drive? i have virtual drive as cache drive on my unraid server, and it works just fine. but i'm still on version 6.6.6 in that VM

Great input. That versuon would be a great place to start my triangulation to find which version lost this functionality. Will get to it a bit later when I get to my server.

[doron]

5 hours ago, uldise said:

and previous versions of unraid are working ok with the same drive? i have virtual drive as cache drive on my unraid server, and it works just fine. but i'm still on version 6.6.6 in that VM

Okay this is interesting. I just installed 6.6.6 and I'm seeing the same problem.

Questions:

1. Which version of ESXi do you run?

2. What is the virtual hardware version of your Unraid VM?

Thanks!

[uldise]

20 minutes ago, doron said:

Okay this is interesting. I just installed 6.6.6 and I'm seeing the same problem.

Questions:

1. Which version of ESXi do you run?

2. What is the virtual hardware version of your Unraid VM?

Thanks!

do you have this advanced option in your VMX?

disk.EnableUUID = "true"

 

my ESXi is at version 6.5, virtual hardware version 9.

Edited March 14, 2020 by uldise

[doron]

38 minutes ago, uldise said:

do you have this advanced option in your VMX?

disk.EnableUUID = "true"

Hmm. Red face here... It was indeed missing. At some point I recreated the VMs and apparently this setting fell through the cracks.

Thank you! Problem(...) solved.

[uldise]

6 minutes ago, doron said:

Problem(...) solved.

Glad you sorted it out.  there are some posts on forum about this option, but they all are quit old already, but as you see, problem still persists.

 

[doron]

3 minutes ago, uldise said:

Glad you sorted it out.  there are some posts on forum about this option, but they all are quit old already, but as you see, problem still persists.

 

Absolutely. I've been running Unraid under ESXi for many years, and previously had this setting in my vmx file. I accidentally dropped it when I recreated all my VMs, a short while ago.

Thanks again.