Emulate a SSD drive in ESX :
The standard hard drive (HDD) has been the predominant storage device for a very long time. But now HDDs are getting replaced with SSD drives.SSD drives outshine HDD especially due to its speed and reliability. But the price of a solid state drive is much more than a HDD.
In this era of virtualisation, we can actually emulate a SSD drive in an ESX machine using few steps.
How to emulate a SSD drive:
You require a device with sufficient storage space and of course an ESX box.
To verify whether SSD option is already enabled or not, execute
~ # esxcli storage core device list --device=<device name>
The output will be having a field “Is SSD” which denotes whether it’s enabled or not.
You need to create a new SATP rule specifying your device and specifying the "enable_ssd" string as part of the --option parameter:
esxcli storage nmp satp rule add –satp VMW_SATP_LOCAL –device <device name> --option=enable_ssd
esxcli storage nmp satp rule list|grep enable_ssd
VMW_SATP_LOCAL
mpx.vmhba1:C0:T2:L0
enable_ssd user
You now can verify from the command line that your new device is being seen as an SSD device, by displaying the details for this particular device:
~ # esxcli storage core device list --device=<device name>
mpx.vmhba1:C0:T2:L0
Display Name: Local VMware Disk (mpx.vmhba1:C0:T2:L0)
Has Settable Display Name: false Size: 5120
Device Type: Direct-Access Multipath Plugin: NMP
Devfs Path: /vmfs/devices/disks/mpx.vmhba1:C0:T2:L0
Vendor: VMware Model: Virtual disk Revision: 1.0 SCSI Level: 2 Is Pseudo: false
Status: on
Is RDM Capable: false Is Local: true
Is Removable: false
Is SSD: true
Is Offline: false Is Perennially Reserved: false
Thin Provisioning Status: unknown
Attached Filters: VAAI Status: unsupported
Other UIDs: vml.0000000000766d686261313a323a30
Now you can refresh the Storage view on the vSphere Client or you can do so from the command line by running the following command:
~ #vim-cmd hostsvc/storage/refresh
To remove the settings :
~#esxcli storage nmp satp rule remove --satp VMW_SATP_LOCAL --device naa.6001e4f01d872f001769bdcb4f02a105 --option=enable_ssd
~ # esxcli storage nmp satp list |grep ssd
~ # esxcli storage core claiming reclaim -d naa.6001e4f01d872f001769bdcb4f02a105
~ # esxcli storage core device list --device=naa.6001e4f01d872f001769bdcb4f02a105
naa.6001e4f01d872f001769bdcb4f02a105
Display Name: Local DELL Disk (naa.6001e4f01d872f001769bdcb4f02a105)
Has Settable Display Name: true
Size: 139392
Device Type: Direct-Access
Multipath Plugin: NMP
Devfs Path: /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.6001e4f01d872f001769bdcb4f02a105
Vendor: DELL
Model: PERC 5/i
Revision: 1.03
SCSI Level: 5
Is Pseudo: false
Status: on
Is RDM Capable: false
Is Local: true
Is Removable: false
Is SSD: false
Is Offline: false
Is Perennially Reserved: false
Thin Provisioning Status: unknown
Attached Filters:
VAAI Status: unsupported
Other UIDs: vml.02000000006001e4f01d872f001769bdcb4f02a105504552432035
~ # vim-cmd hostsvc/storage/refresh