UCS C210-M2 can't add local storage

[p-blalock]

Just received 6 new UCS C210-M2s, four of them are perfect but having problems with two of them; All of the servers came with the RAID arrays built, one around 135GB and the other around 985GB.  After installing vSphere 4.1 U2 on one of the servers, I am unable to "add" local storage of the 985GB array.  vSphere sees the storage, but gives and error when I try to add it... all the other servers are fine.  I ran the diagnostics and it came back clean and passed.

On the second defective server, the BIOS sees the obove board Broadcom Quad NICs, but vSphere does not.  I am channeling and trunking the 4GE Boradcom NICs on all the server and so select them during the vSphere setup screen, but on this server only the 2 onboard intel NICs show up for selection.  I've run the SUU on all 6 of the servers and have the latest firmware and BIOS.  Thought I'd throw this out in the community, to see if I'm completly missing something (rookie mistake), before opening a TAC case tomorrow.

vSphere error when trying to add the data store: "Call "HostDatastoreSystem.QueryVmfsDatastoreCreateOptions" for object "ha-datastoresystem" on ESXi "10.65.200.144" failed."

[Robert Burns]

From the name of that datastore it looks like that is your clustered datastore - am I right?

That being said you only need to "add" the datastore to one of your hosts.  The error you see if vCenter's way of telling you there's already a signature for a VMFS on it.  You should be able to simply "refresh" the Storage tab and the datastore should show up assuming its been correctly zoned & masked with your other ESX hosts.

For the second issue with the broadcom NICs, can you provide the output of "esxcfg-nics -l".  Perhaps its just a driver issue on this host - since you say the BIOS can see them, but not the running OS.

Regards,

Robert

[p-blalock]

Thanks. The data store is not clustered, it is the local raid array on the host. The error is a direct result of trying to add it as a data store via the hosts ESXi v4.1 U2

As for the Broadcom possible driver issue, I'll send the output next week when I get back in front of the server. However, I am working with 6 brand new UCS C210-M2 platforms here. Four of the six servers are working fine, but these two are problems. All the servers accepted and are running the latest firmware and BIOS. The BIOS sees the Broadcom with correct firmware, but vSphere (ESXi 4.1 U2) does not. The same DVD was used on all six servers to install vSphere. I gather from your response that you may think that vSphere is the problem?

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPhone App

[Robert Burns]

After you try to add the datastore (to generate a timestamp reference) take a look at the vmkernel logs.  Paste any relevant outputs here - it should give us more direction on the exact cause.

Robert