ME4024 VMWare VAAI Support

Question

ME4024 (-04 firmware) volumes presented to a ESXi 6.7 U1 server are showing Hardware Acceleration status of Unknown. MD3820i volumes presented to the same host show status Supported. Is this an issue that will be addressed in the next ME firmware release?

Also, if the volume presented is on SSD, it will show Drive Type of HDD instead of Flash. Again, with an MD3820i we don't have this issue. I can however manually change the Drive Type to Flash.

All of my volumes are Linear on the ME.

DELL-Sam L · Answer

Hello JMofVI,

Here is a link to Dell EMC PowerVault ME4 Series and VMware vSphere guide & if you look on page 21 it list out the supported features for VAAI. https://downloads.dell.com/manuals/common/powervault-me4-series-vmware-vsphere-dell-emc-2018-3922-bp-vm_wp2_en-us.pdf

As far as changing the drive type form HDD to flash, I checked with our storage analyst and there is not a way to change type of drive. The ME4 will sense which drive type is in each slot, but there is not a way to change the drive type in MESM. Also, the MD3 systems are made by a different manufacture than the ME4.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

JMofVI · Answer

Thank you for responding Sam.

While I understand that VAAI is supported by the ME series SANs, the issue is that the SANs don't report their VAAI capabilities correctly to VMWare (ESXi/vCenter) and hence we see "Unknown" as the status for VAAI support (called Hardware Acceleration in the vCenter console). It seems like this would be an easy firmware fix on Dell's side.

Similarly, the issue with how the SSD volumes are displayed is NOT in the MESM, but in VMWare vCenter. For some reason ME4xxx SSD based volumes do not register in VMWare as being flash disks, but as being regular old spinning disks (HDD). Again, the SAN is just not reporting its capabilities correctly to VMWare.

DELL-Sam L · Answer

Hello JMofVI,

Can I get you to provide me with a screen shot so that we can look deeper into this issue? I am also going to send you a private message & if you can send me your service tag for your ME4024 so that I can have this escalated & reviewed so we can correct this issue.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.