Friday, January 30, 2009

Asus DSBV-DX mobo, Raid & ESX

Trying to use some local storage (3 x 750GB Seagate's in a Raid 5, and another random 80gb drive for the OS) on an ESX box, I decided to use the onboard raid for the Asus DSBV-DX. I had two problems, and I can thank some newsgroup posters for solving my issue(s).

Problem #1
Using the Default LSI controller build into the mobo (there are 6 Raid ports, they can be controlled by either the LSI or the Intel Storage Matrix) I could not create a raid 5 out of my disks, I tried everything, but in the LSI bios, it allowed me to choose Raid 5, but then gave the error of "Invalid Operation. Pls check the RAID key", so after my friend google found me this article http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?board_id=5&model=DSBV-DX&id=20080601052918421&page=1&SLanguage=en-us I realized that I had to use the Intel controller to leverage Raid 5, since the LSI doesn't support it.

Problem #2
Now that I have swapped the jumper over to Intel, and sucessfully configured a Raid 5 out of my drives, The ESX 3.5 Up3 install tells me that I have 3 individual drives, not the Raid 5 Single Drive it should see. Again Mr Google found me this http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?board_id=5&model=DSEB-DG&id=20080601004357890&page=1&SLanguage=en-us . So I grabbed a PCI-X ESX supported Raid controller, and now my ESX server is working again with local storage just like I wanted it.

another 20 minute job that took 6 hours...I love technology

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hello,
I had the same problem.

The Problem is that your both Intel and LSI Raid controller is that ESX doesn't come with drivers for the RAID side of the controllers. I ended up buying an Adaptec which only supports ESXi 3.5. not the new vSphere(ESXi 4.0) My Motherboard is a ASUS Z8NA-D6. it comes with the Intel ICH10 Chipset and Dual LGA1366 CPU. Unforturnately in order to get the LSI to work for mine i have to buy a "PIKE" card version 1078 from ASUS. This gives me SAS support for my board without having to buy a different motherboard. and also would allow both ESX and ESXi to use the RAID feature. but you will also need to download the driver from VMware and install it. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Marcus

Real time said...

Hy i need help . I buy one board DSBDX on Ebay but not BOOT UP on normal Mode . BOOT only on recovery mode. I use one ATX 900W. 2X Xeon 5160 & 4x ecc 667 Mhz. Any idea ??