C240 M6 standalone - how to load ESXi on 600GB drive installed?

[alanraczek11]

I am not real knowledgeable of Cisco Servers. I was handed a new server to setup and I am a little confused. It does not have any drives in the front and one 600GB drive plugged into the back. Opening up the server shows that it is a PCIe slot. I honestly don't know how to proceed here, not real familiar with the BIOS, CIMC. I can't seem to find the 600GB drive in the BIOS.

I honestly need a lot of help here. Final outcome is to get vSphere loaded on this server. I booted up vSphere from the CD and

setup cannot find any local drives. HELP!

[balaji.bandi]

First you need to map the drives using Controllers

[alanraczek11]

Thank you. I basically need a "how to" guide. Haven't worked much with UCS on a new installation.

[balaji.bandi]

follow below guide :

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/c/sw/raid/configuration/guide/b_cisco-ucs-servers-raid-guide/m_raid-overview.html

[alanraczek11]

Thank you for the RAID info, but that really doesn't tell me how to work with this hardware. It's basically a lesson on RAID. I have gotten the CIMC configured and I am able to login from there. There is a 600GB drive in the back of the server on a PCIe card. It plugs in from the rear. There are no drives in the front, they have not been ordered yet. I am tasked with getting ESXi on this drive. I need to know start to finish how I get partitions created, and get it so ESXi sees this drive. Any help is appreciated, thank you.

...Alan

[Steven Tardy]

Providing the SN of the server might help as Cisco Internal (TAC) can view what hardware that server shipped with to provide answers instead of asking lots of questions.

Is the 600GB disk a SAS/SATA disk which should be connected using a SAS cable to a disk controller?
Does the server have a disk controller?
Or is the 600GB disk a NVMe disk which connects direct to the CPU through PCIe?

Is the server in Legacy/BIOS mode or UEFI mode?
(Booting from NVMe may require UEFI mode, but I'm not 100% sure.)

What version/build of ESXi .iso did you try to boot?

[alanraczek11]

Sorry for the late response, sure , here is the SN: WZP26380ZC4. The disk drive is attached to a PCIe card.

I believe the server is in UEFI mode. Tried to install ESXi 8.0 and the installer did not find any drives, going to try and use the free version.

[Steven Tardy]

---

SN: WZP26380ZC4.

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This server (PID: UCSC-C240-M6L) shipped with one drive and a RAID card and configured as single disk RAID 0:

• UCS-HD600G15K12N :: 600GB 12G SAS 15K RPM SFF HDD
• UCSC-RAID-M6HD :: M6 RAID controller; 32 ports; 4G Mem
• R2XX-SRAID0 :: Enable Single Disk Raid 0 Setting

Does the LSI/Avago/RAID BIOS boot screen show that RAID 0 virtual drive (VD)?
If not, then you may need to re-add the virtual drive.

ESXi won't install directly to the drive (JBOD), but to the virtual drive (VD-0, RAID 0 of 1x drive).
If the BIOS boot screen shows the RAID 0, then I would expect ESXi to see that drive also.

If you still can't figure it out, then probably need to open a TAC case.
If you don't want to open a TAC case, then I may have a little time free (sttardy@cisco.com) to walk through getting this configured for you.

[alanraczek11]

Still looking to keep this active. I have not revisited this since the developer said they are buying at least one drive for the front. Still I am interested in how I may use the 600GB drive. As far as what the LSI/Avago/RAID BIOS I don't recall  seeing a virtual drive of any kind.  An attempted esxi install found no drives. "If not, then you may need to re-add the virtual drive" then I need to know how to do this. And I have asked my boss repeatedly about "getting help" and opening a ticket and get no response.

...Alan

...Alan

[Kirk J]

If the drive is in 'jbod' mode, you will have to convert it to 'unconfigured good' before you can create a VD out out it.

See https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/c/sw/gui/config/guide/4_2/b_cisco_ucs_c-series_gui_configuration_guide_42/b_Cisco_UCS_C-series_GUI_Configuration_Guide_41_chapter_01100.html  for info on creating virtual drive, converting jbod to unconfigured good, etc.

Kirk...

[Steven Tardy]

"Support" is cisco.com/support [Open New Case].

I have previously provided my work email address if you want to walk through your day-1 initial configuration together.