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Dell PowerEdge Express Flash NVMe PCIe SSD Adapter User’s Guide

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Installing or upgrading NVMe PCIe SSD driver for VMware

  • NOTE: Use the procedures in this section to install or upgrade the driver for VMware ESXi 5.5. To ensure that you have the current version of the driver, download the latest VMware ESXi 5.5 driver from Dell.com/support. For more information, see Downloading NVMe PCIe SSD drivers .
  • NOTE: VMware ESXi 5.5 U3 and later contains an in-box driver. Dell recommends that you to go to VMware’s download site for the latest NVMe driver and follow the documentation provided there for installation instructions.
  1. Transfer the NVMe PCIe SSD driver to the ESXi host using either vSphere Client Browse Datastore or an SFTP/FTP/SCP client. Using the vSphere Client:
    1. Navigate to the configuration.
    2. Select Storage from the hardware section.
    3. Right-click Datastore, and then select Browse.
    4. Upload the PCIe SSD driver to the datastore.
    Using an SFTP/FTP/SCP client:
    1. Launch the SFTP/FTP/SCP program.
    2. Extract the driver files from the *.zip file.
    3. Copy the PCIe SSD driver file to a local folder on the host.
  2. Power off all VMs running inside the ESXi host operating system.
  3. Enable the ESXi shell service. Using the vSphere client:
    1. Navigate to the Configuration tab of the host IP.
    2. Click Software > Security Profile .
    3. Click Services > ESXi Shell > Properties .
    4. Start the ESXi shell service.
    Directly from the host settings:
    1. Press <F2> to customize system settings.
    2. Enter your user name and password.
    3. Navigate to the troubleshooting options.
    4. Enable the ESXi shell.
    5. Enable SSH.
  4. Install the NVMe PCIe SSD driver on the ESXi host.
    1. Navigate to the datastore volume or file directory that contains the NVMe PCIe SSD driver, and run the following command: esxcli software vib install /<complete_path_to_offline_driver>.
    2. Reboot the ESXi host.
  5. Ensure that the driver has been correctly installed by running the following command: esxcli software vib list | grep nvme.
  6. Using vSphere, place the ESXi host in maintenance mode and reboot the host.
  7. Once the host reboots and is running, take the host out of maintenance mode.

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