PowerStore: ESXi guest OS LUN I/O failures due to DiskMaxIOSize setting, resulting in various symptoms

Summary: When ESXi host's DiskMaxIOSize is left at its default value, client VMs experience various I/O failures, including the following: - Guest OS install on Virtual Machine using a PowerStore datastore fails with I/O error(s) - Guest OS updates fail - Guest OS drive fails to mount on reboot ...

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Symptoms

Failure Examples:     
These examples are a subset of what may result with the DiskMaxIOSize left at its default value.
 
  • Install of guest OS Oracle Linux 7:   
Was being installed on an ESXi 6.5 host using VMFS 6
 
The error on the VM is "Log recovery read I/O error at dadr 0x15eB len 4096 error -121":     
 
 

Example of failing update:       
 
 
  • Offline Drive after Reboot:       
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Cause

PowerStore advertises a 1MB Max Transfer Size. The host is supposed to query the appliance for the maximum allowed I/O size. However, the host ignores the recommended value and sends a larger data block.

Resolution

Per VMware KB 2137402, this issue is resolved in VMware ESXi 6.0, Patch Release ESXi600-201909001, VMware ESXi 6.5, Patch Release ESXi650-201811002 and VMware ESXi 6.7 Update 1 Release.

As a workaround to this issue, set the ESXi DiskMaxIOSize parameter on each host that sees the PowerStore's Volumes to the I/O block size(1MB) value advertised by PowerStore.

For details, see the PowerStore Host Configuration Guide found in the PowerStore Info Hub

Affected Products

PowerStore

Products

PowerStore Employee and Partner
Article Properties
Article Number: 000182665
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 27 Aug 2022
Version:  7
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