Replacing driver for MegaRAID SAS 9361-8i on ESXi 6

Background

This will be a short article for those who need to replace the driver used for MegaRAID SAS 9361-8i on ESXi 6.

MegaRAID SAS 9361-8i is the default controller used in Softlayer and if your plan is to run vSphere 6 with VSAN on it, you need to know some specifics. In my blog post here I demonstrate the whole configuration process. But that article is updated quite often, based on information I am getting from various sources.

Now, the thing is that at some point it was recommended to use the lsi_mr3 driver bundled with ESXi for VSAN. But after some of testing it was discovered that the bundled driver does not perform well so I was told that people should switch to using Legacy megaraid driver.

If you are in the list of people who is using lsi_mr3, here is how you can install megaraid driver. And disable lsi_mr3.

How-to

Before you do anything, of course put your host into maintenance mode. Although, based on my tests, there is no data loss, if you can afford it, evacuate the VSAN data from the host.

1. Download the magaraid driver from VMware website. The driver version I was recommended to use is  6.610.15.00-1OEM and it can be downloaded from here. Unzip the archive, what we need is the .vib file. In my case its called scsi-megaraid-sas_6.610.15.00-1OEM.600.0.0.2494585.vib. Once you have the .vib, upload it to some datastore or use a tool like WinSCP to copy the file to your ESXi host.

2. To check which driver is used at the moment you can run the following command:

esxcli storage core adapter list

The output should be similar to this one:

[root@esx06:~] esxcli storage core adapter list
HBA Name  Driver     Link State  UID                                                Capabilities         Description
--------  ---------  ----------  -------------------------------------------------  -------------------  ----------------------------------------------------------                                                          (0000:00:1f.2) Intel Corporation Wellsburg AHCI Controller
vmhba2    lsi_mr3    link-n/a    sas.500605b009b29700                                                    (0000:04:00.0) Avago (LSI) MegaRAID SAS Invader Controller

3. Now, we need to install the megaraid driver. The process is the same like with any other other .vib file:

esxcli software vib install -v="/vmfs/volumes/DATASTORENAME/scsi-megaraid-sas_6.610.15.00-1OEM.600.0.0.2494585.vib"

4. After driver is installed you need to disable the lsi_mr3 module in kernel:

esxcfg-module -d lsi_mr3

5. Now, reboot the host. After reboot, once again, run the following command to see if driver was replaced:

esxcli storage core adapter list

Output should look similarly to this:

[root@esx06:~] esxcli storage core adapter list
HBA Name  Driver        Link State  UID                                                Capabilities         Description
--------  ------------  ----------  -------------------------------------------------  -------------------  --------------------------------------------------------------------------                                                          (0000:00:1f.2) Intel Corporation Wellsburg AHCI Controller
vmhba2    megaraid_sas  link-n/a    unknown.vmhba2                                                          (0000:04:00.0) Avago (LSI / Symbios Logic) MegaRAID SAS Invader Controller

Hope this helps.

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Aram Avetisyan

Aram Avetisyan is an IT specialist with more than 18 years experience. He has rich background in various IT related fields like Cloud, Virtualization and SDN. He holds several industry level certifications including but not limited to VCIX-DCV, VCIX-NV. He is also a vEXPERT in years 2014-2021.

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