Release Date: 12 MAY , 2022

What's in the Release Notes

The release notes cover the following topics:

• Patch Build Details
• Resolved Issues
• Known Issues from Previous Releases

Build Details

Download Filename:	ESXi650-202205001.zip
Build:	19588618
Download Size:	470.1 MB
md5sum:	3a84e769eb15812c1f1a16f5f40be729
sha256checksum:	793b7fae097a0cd3856cf60d3eb92adcfe05eadceca3689307bda35c6a82529e
Host Reboot Required:	Yes
Virtual Machine Migration or Shutdown Required:	Yes

Bulletins

Bulletin ID	Category	Severity
ESXi650-202205401-BG	Bugfix	Important
ESXi650-202205402-BG	Bugfix	Important
ESXi650-202205101-SG	Security	Important
ESXi650-202205102-SG	Security	Important

Rollup Bulletin

This rollup bulletin contains the latest VIBs with all the fixes since the initial release of ESXi 6.5.

Bulletin ID	Category	Severity
ESXi650-202205001	Bugfix	Important

IMPORTANT: For clusters using VMware vSAN, you must first upgrade the vCenter Server system. Upgrading only ESXi is not supported.
Before an upgrade, always verify in the VMware Product Interoperability Matrix compatible upgrade paths from earlier versions of ESXi, vCenter Server and vSAN to the current version.

Image Profiles

VMware patch and update releases contain general and critical image profiles. Application of the general release image profile applies to new bug fixes.

Image Profile Name

ESXi-6.5.0-20220504001-standard

ESXi-6.5.0-20220504001-no-tools

ESXi-6.5.0-20220501001s-standard

ESXi-6.5.0-20220501001s-no-tools

For more information about the individual bulletins, see the Download Patches page and the Resolved Issues section.

Patch Download and Installation

The typical way to apply patches to ESXi hosts is by using the VMware vSphere Update Manager. For details, see About Installing and Administering VMware vSphere Update Manager.

ESXi hosts can be updated by manually downloading the patch ZIP file from VMware Customer Connect. Navigate to Products and Accounts > Product Patches. From the Select a Product drop-down menu, select ESXi (Embedded and Installable) and from the Select a Version drop-down menu, select 6.5.0. Install VIBs by using the esxcli software vib update command. Additionally, the system can be updated by using the image profile and the esxcli software profile update command. For more information, see vSphere Command-Line Interface Concepts and Examples and vSphere Upgrade Guide.

Resolved Issues

The resolved issues are grouped as follows.

• ESXi650-202205401-BG
• ESXi650-202205402-BG
• ESXi650-202205101-SG
• ESXi650-202205102-SG
• ESXi-6.5.0-20220504001-standard
• ESXi-6.5.0-20220504001-no-tools
• ESXi-6.5.0-20220501001s-standard
• ESXi-6.5.0-20220501001s-no-tools

ESXi650-202205401-BG

Patch Category	Bugfix
Patch Severity	Important
Host Reboot Required	Yes
Virtual Machine Migration or Shutdown Required	Yes
Affected Hardware	N/A
Affected Software	N/A
VIBs Included	VMware_bootbank_esx-base_6.5.0-3.184.19588618 VMware_bootbank_vsanhealth_6.5.0-3.184.19585071 VMware_bootbank_esx-tboot_6.5.0-3.184.19588618 VMware_bootbank_vsan_6.5.0-3.184.19585070
PRs Fixed	2781237, 2901023, 2915263
Related CVE numbers	N/A

This patch updates esx-base, esx-tboot, vsan, and vsanhealth VIBs to resolve the following issues:

• PR 2901023: ESXi hosts might fail with a purple diagnostic screen when I/O operations run on a software iSCSI adapter

  I/O operations on a software iSCSI adapter might cause a rare race condition inside the iscsi_vmk driver. As a result, ESXi hosts might intermittently fail with a purple diagnostic screen.

  This issue is resolved in this release.

• PR 2915263: If you enable SNMP on a HPE Gen10 ESXi host, you might see redundant SNMP traps

  If you enable SNMP on a HPE Gen10 ESXi host, you might see SNMP traps to hardware components without an actual hardware fault.

  This issue is resolved in this release. The fix provides a local variable to hold sensor addresses instead of a global variable that has no lock protection.

• PR 2781237: The sfcb service becomes unresponsive as soon as it starts up

  In rare cases, due to an occasional deadlock in the start up of the sfcb service, some providers might not start up properly. As a result, the sfcb service becomes unresponsive and CIM queries cannot be processed.

  This issue is resolved in this release. 

ESXi650-202205402-BG

Patch Category	Bugfix
Patch Severity	Important
Host Reboot Required	No
Virtual Machine Migration or Shutdown Required	No
Affected Hardware	N/A
Affected Software	N/A
VIBs Included	VMware_bootbank_esx-xserver_6.5.0-3.184.19588618
PRs Fixed	N/A
Related CVE numbers	N/A

This patch updates the esx-xserver VIB.

ESXi650-202205101-SG

Patch Category	Security
Patch Severity	Important
Host Reboot Required	Yes
Virtual Machine Migration or Shutdown Required	Yes
Affected Hardware	N/A
Affected Software	N/A
VIBs Included	VMware_bootbank_vsan_6.5.0-3.180.19360877 VMware_bootbank_vsanhealth_6.5.0-3.180.19360878 VMware_bootbank_esx-base_6.5.0-3.180.19581852 VMware_bootbank_esx-tboot_6.5.0-3.180.19581852
PRs Fixed	2912296, 2912304, 2912306, 2912309, 2920289, 2921089, 2930023, 2936558, 2942529
Related CVE numbers	CVE-2017-9765, CVE-2021-42378, CVE-2021-42379, CVE-2021-42380, CVE-2021-42381, CVE-2021-42382, CVE-2021-42383, CVE-2021-42384, CVE-2021-42385, CVE-2021-42386, CVE-2004-0230, CVE-2020-7451, CVE-2015-2923, CVE-2015-5358, CVE-2013-3077, CVE-2015-1414, CVE-2018-6918, CVE-2020-7469, CVE-2019-5611, CVE-2020-7457, CVE-2018-6916, CVE-2019-5608

This patch esx-base, esx-tboot, vsan and vsanhealth VIBs to resolve the following issues:

• ESXi650-202205001 delivers the following security updates:
  • The gSOAP is updated to resolve CVE-2017-9765.
  • The Expat XML parser is updated to version 2.4.7.
  • The OpenSSL library is updated to version 1.0.2zd.
  • cURL is updated to version 7.81.0.
  • The SQLite database is updated to version 3.37.2.
  • The Busybox package is updated to address the following CVEs: CVE-2021-42378, CVE-2021-42379, CVE-2021-42380, CVE-2021-42381, CVE-2021-42382, CVE-2021-42383, CVE-2021-42384, CVE-2021-42385, and CVE-2021-42386.
  • This release resolves CVE-2004-0230. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the low severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 3.7.
  • This release resolves CVE-2020-7451. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the moderate severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 5.3.
  • This release resolves CVE-2015-2923. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the moderate severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 6.5.
  • This release resolves CVE-2015-5358. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the moderate severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 6.5.
  • This release resolves CVE-2013-3077. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 7.0.
  • This release resolves CVE-2015-1414. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 7.5.  
  • This release resolves CVE-2018-6918. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 7.5.
  • This release resolves CVE-2020-7469. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 7.5.
  • This release resolves CVE-2019-5611. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 7.5. 
  • This release resolves CVE-2020-7457. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 7.8. 
  • This release resolves CVE-2018-6916. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 8.1.
  • This release resolves CVE-2019-5608. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 8.1.

ESXi650-202205102-SG

Patch Category	Security
Patch Severity	Important
Host Reboot Required	No
Virtual Machine Migration or Shutdown Required	No
Affected Hardware	N/A
Affected Software	N/A
VIBs Included	VMware_locker_tools-light_6.5.0-3.180.19581852
PRs Fixed	2917100
Related CVE numbers	N/A

This patch updates the tools-light ​VIB.

• The following VMware Tools ISO images are bundled with ESXi 650-202204001:

  • windows.iso: VMware Tools 12.0.0 supports Windows 7 SP1 or Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and later.
  • linux.iso: VMware Tools 10.3.24 ISO image for Linux OS with glibc 2.11 or later.

  The following VMware Tools ISO images are available for download:

  • VMware Tools 10.0.12:
    • winPreVista.iso: for Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 2003.
    • linuxPreGLibc25.iso: for Linux OS with a glibc version less than 2.5.
       
  • VMware Tools 11.0.6:
    • windows.iso: for Windows Vista (SP2) and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2).
       
  • solaris.iso: VMware Tools image 10.3.10 for Solaris.
  • darwin.iso: Supports Mac OS X versions 10.11 and later.

  Follow the procedures listed in the following documents to download VMware Tools for platforms not bundled with ESXi:

  • VMware Tools 12.0.0 Release Notes
  • Earlier versions of VMware Tools
  • What Every vSphere Admin Must Know About VMware Tools
  • VMware Tools for hosts provisioned with Auto Deploy
  • Updating VMware Tools

ESXi-6.5.0-20220504001-standard

Profile Name	ESXi-6.5.0-20220504001-standard
Build	For build information, see the top of the page.
Vendor	VMware, Inc.
Release Date	May 12, 2022
Acceptance Level	PartnerSupported
Affected Hardware	N/A
Affected Software	N/A
Affected VIBs	VMware_bootbank_esx-base_6.5.0-3.184.19588618 VMware_bootbank_vsanhealth_6.5.0-3.184.19585071 VMware_bootbank_esx-tboot_6.5.0-3.184.19588618 VMware_bootbank_vsan_6.5.0-3.184.19585070 VMware_bootbank_esx-xserver_6.5.0-3.184.19588618
PRs Fixed	2781237, 2901023, 2915263
Related CVE numbers	N/A

• This patch resolves the following issues:

  • I/O operations on a software iSCSI adapter might cause a rare race condition inside the iscsi_vmk driver. As a result, ESXi hosts might intermittently fail with a purple diagnostic screen.

  • If you enable SNMP on a HPE Gen10 ESXi host, you might see SNMP traps to hardware components without an actual hardware fault.

  • In rare cases, due to an occasional deadlock in the start up of the sfcb service, some providers might not start up properly. As a result, the sfcb service becomes unresponsive and CIM queries cannot be processed.

ESXi-6.5.0-20220504001-no-tools

Profile Name	ESXi-6.5.0-20220504001-no-tools
Build	For build information, see the top of the page.
Vendor	VMware, Inc.
Release Date	May 12, 2022
Acceptance Level	PartnerSupported
Affected Hardware	N/A
Affected Software	N/A
Affected VIBs	VMware_bootbank_esx-base_6.5.0-3.184.19588618 VMware_bootbank_vsanhealth_6.5.0-3.184.19585071 VMware_bootbank_esx-tboot_6.5.0-3.184.19588618 VMware_bootbank_vsan_6.5.0-3.184.19585070 VMware_bootbank_esx-xserver_6.5.0-3.184.19588618
PRs Fixed	2781237, 2901023, 2915263
Related CVE numbers	N/A

• This patch resolves the following issues:

  • I/O operations on a software iSCSI adapter might cause a rare race condition inside the iscsi_vmk driver. As a result, ESXi hosts might intermittently fail with a purple diagnostic screen.

  • If you enable SNMP on a HPE Gen10 ESXi host, you might see SNMP traps to hardware components without an actual hardware fault.

  • In rare cases, due to an occasional deadlock in the start up of the sfcb service, some providers might not start up properly. As a result, the sfcb service becomes unresponsive and CIM queries cannot be processed.

ESXi-6.5.0-20220501001s-standard

Profile Name	ESXi-6.5.0-20220501001s-standard
Build	For build information, see the top of the page.
Vendor	VMware, Inc.
Release Date	May 12, 2022
Acceptance Level	PartnerSupported
Affected Hardware	N/A
Affected Software	N/A
Affected VIBs	VMware_bootbank_vsan_6.5.0-3.180.19360877 VMware_bootbank_vsanhealth_6.5.0-3.180.19360878 VMware_bootbank_esx-base_6.5.0-3.180.19581852 VMware_bootbank_esx-tboot_6.5.0-3.180.19581852 VMware_locker_tools-light_6.5.0-3.180.19581852
PRs Fixed	2912296, 2912304, 2912306, 2912309, 2920289, 2921089, 2930023, 2936558, 2942529
Related CVE numbers	CVE-2017-9765, CVE-2021-42378, CVE-2021-42379, CVE-2021-42380, CVE-2021-42381, CVE-2021-42382, CVE-2021-42383, CVE-2021-42384, CVE-2021-42385, CVE-2021-42386, CVE-2004-0230, CVE-2020-7451, CVE-2015-2923, CVE-2015-5358, CVE-2013-3077, CVE-2015-1414, CVE-2018-6918, CVE-2020-7469, CVE-2019-5611, CVE-2020-7457, CVE-2018-6916, CVE-2019-5608

• This patch resolves the following issues: 
  • The gSOAP is updated to resolve CVE-2017-9765.
  • The Expat XML parser is updated to version 2.4.7.
  • The OpenSSL library is updated to version 1.0.2zd.
  • cURL is updated to version 7.81.0.
  • The SQLite database is updated to version 3.37.2.
  • The Busybox package is updated to address the following CVEs: CVE-2021-42378, CVE-2021-42379, CVE-2021-42380, CVE-2021-42381, CVE-2021-42382, CVE-2021-42383, CVE-2021-42384, CVE-2021-42385, and CVE-2021-42386.
  • This release resolves CVE-2004-0230. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the low severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 3.7.
  • This release resolves CVE-2020-7451. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the moderate severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 5.3.
  • This release resolves CVE-2015-2923. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the moderate severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 6.5.
  • This release resolves CVE-2015-5358. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the moderate severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 6.5.
  • This release resolves CVE-2013-3077. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 7.0.
  • This release resolves CVE-2015-1414. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 7.5.  
  • This release resolves CVE-2018-6918. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 7.5.
  • This release resolves CVE-2020-7469. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 7.5.
  • This release resolves CVE-2019-5611. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 7.5. 
  • This release resolves CVE-2020-7457. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 7.8. 
  • This release resolves CVE-2018-6916. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 8.1.
  • This release resolves CVE-2019-5608. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 8.1.

  • The following VMware Tools ISO images are bundled with ESXi 650-202204001:

    • windows.iso: VMware Tools 12.0.0 supports Windows 7 SP1 or Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and later.
    • linux.iso: VMware Tools 10.3.24 ISO image for Linux OS with glibc 2.11 or later.

    The following VMware Tools ISO images are available for download:

    • VMware Tools 10.0.12:
      • winPreVista.iso: for Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 2003.
      • linuxPreGLibc25.iso: for Linux OS with a glibc version less than 2.5.
         
    • VMware Tools 11.0.6:
      • windows.iso: for Windows Vista (SP2) and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2).
         
    • solaris.iso: VMware Tools image 10.3.10 for Solaris.
    • darwin.iso: Supports Mac OS X versions 10.11 and later.

    Follow the procedures listed in the following documents to download VMware Tools for platforms not bundled with ESXi:

    • VMware Tools 12.0.0 Release Notes
    • Earlier versions of VMware Tools
    • What Every vSphere Admin Must Know About VMware Tools
    • VMware Tools for hosts provisioned with Auto Deploy
    • Updating VMware Tools

ESXi-6.5.0-20220501001s-no-tools

Profile Name	ESXi-6.5.0-20220501001s-no-tools
Build	For build information, see the top of the page.
Vendor	VMware, Inc.
Release Date	May 12, 2022
Acceptance Level	PartnerSupported
Affected Hardware	N/A
Affected Software	N/A
Affected VIBs	VMware_bootbank_vsan_6.5.0-3.180.19360877 VMware_bootbank_vsanhealth_6.5.0-3.180.19360878 VMware_bootbank_esx-base_6.5.0-3.180.19581852 VMware_bootbank_esx-tboot_6.5.0-3.180.19581852
PRs Fixed	2912296, 2912304, 2912306, 2912309, 2920289, 2921089, 2930023, 2936558, 2942529
Related CVE numbers	CVE-2017-9765, CVE-2021-42378, CVE-2021-42379, CVE-2021-42380, CVE-2021-42381, CVE-2021-42382, CVE-2021-42383, CVE-2021-42384, CVE-2021-42385, CVE-2021-42386, CVE-2004-0230, CVE-2020-7451, CVE-2015-2923, CVE-2015-5358, CVE-2013-3077, CVE-2015-1414, CVE-2018-6918, CVE-2020-7469, CVE-2019-5611, CVE-2020-7457, CVE-2018-6916, CVE-2019-5608

• This patch resolves the following issues: 
  • The gSOAP is updated to resolve CVE-2017-9765.
  • The Expat XML parser is updated to version 2.4.7.
  • The OpenSSL library is updated to version 1.0.2zd.
  • cURL is updated to version 7.81.0.
  • The SQLite database is updated to version 3.37.2.
  • The Busybox package is updated to address the following CVEs: CVE-2021-42378, CVE-2021-42379, CVE-2021-42380, CVE-2021-42381, CVE-2021-42382, CVE-2021-42383, CVE-2021-42384, CVE-2021-42385, and CVE-2021-42386.
  • This release resolves CVE-2004-0230. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the low severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 3.7.
  • This release resolves CVE-2020-7451. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the moderate severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 5.3.
  • This release resolves CVE-2015-2923. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the moderate severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 6.5.
  • This release resolves CVE-2015-5358. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the moderate severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 6.5.
  • This release resolves CVE-2013-3077. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 7.0.
  • This release resolves CVE-2015-1414. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 7.5.  
  • This release resolves CVE-2018-6918. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 7.5.
  • This release resolves CVE-2020-7469. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 7.5.
  • This release resolves CVE-2019-5611. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 7.5. 
  • This release resolves CVE-2020-7457. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 7.8. 
  • This release resolves CVE-2018-6916. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 8.1.
  • This release resolves CVE-2019-5608. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 8.1.

  • The following VMware Tools ISO images are bundled with ESXi 650-202204001:

    • windows.iso: VMware Tools 12.0.0 supports Windows 7 SP1 or Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and later.
    • linux.iso: VMware Tools 10.3.24 ISO image for Linux OS with glibc 2.11 or later.

    The following VMware Tools ISO images are available for download:

    • VMware Tools 10.0.12:
      • winPreVista.iso: for Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 2003.
      • linuxPreGLibc25.iso: for Linux OS with a glibc version less than 2.5.
         
    • VMware Tools 11.0.6:
      • windows.iso: for Windows Vista (SP2) and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2).
         
    • solaris.iso: VMware Tools image 10.3.10 for Solaris.
    • darwin.iso: Supports Mac OS X versions 10.11 and later.

    Follow the procedures listed in the following documents to download VMware Tools for platforms not bundled with ESXi:

    • VMware Tools 12.0.0 Release Notes
    • Earlier versions of VMware Tools
    • What Every vSphere Admin Must Know About VMware Tools
    • VMware Tools for hosts provisioned with Auto Deploy
    • Updating VMware Tools

Known Issues from Previous Releases

To view a list of previous known issues, click here.

The earlier known issues are grouped as follows.

• Upgrade Issues
• vSphere vMotion Issues
• Storage Issues

Upgrade Issues

• Upgrades to ESXi650-202007001 might fail due to the replacement of an expired digital signing certificate and key

  Upgrades to ESXi650-202007001 from some earlier versions of ESXi might fail due to the replacement of an expired digital signing certificate and key. If you use ESXCLI, you see a message Could not find a trusted signer. If you use vSphere Update Manager, you see a message similar to cannot execute upgrade script on host.

  Workaround: For more details on the issue and workaround, see VMware knowledge base article 76555.

• Upgrades to ESXi 7.x from esxi650-202102001 by using ESXCLI might fail due to a space limitation

  Upgrades to ESXi 7.x from esxi650-202102001 by using the esxcli software profile update or esxcli software profile install ESXCLI commands might fail, because the ESXi bootbank might be less than the size of the image profile. In the ESXi Shell or the PowerCLI shell, you see an error such as:

   [InstallationError]
   The pending transaction requires 244 MB free space, however the maximum supported size is 239 MB.
   Please refer to the log file for more details.

  The issue also occurs when you attempt an ESXi host upgrade by using the ESXCLI commands esxcli software vib update or esxcli software vib install.

  Workaround: You can perform the upgrade in two steps, by using the esxcli software profile update command to update ESXi hosts to ESXi 6.7 Update 1 or later, and then update to 7.x. Alternatively, you can run an upgrade by using an ISO image and the vSphere Lifecycle Manager.

vSphere vMotion Issues

• PR 2467075: Due to unavailable P2M slots during migration by using vSphere vMotion, virtual machines might fail with purple diagnostic screen or power off

  Memory resourcing for virtual machines that require more memory, such as 3D devices, might cause an overflow of the P2M buffer during migration by using vSphere vMotion. As a result, shared memory pages break. The virtual machine fails with a purple screen or power off. You might see an error message similar to P2M reservation failed after max retries.

  Workaround: Follow the steps described in VMware knowledge base article 76387 to manually configure the P2M buffer.

Storage Issues

• PR 2511839: Faulty hardware acceleration implementation on SSDs on a VMFS datastore might lead to VMFS metadata inconsistencies and data integrity issues

  VMFS datastores rely on hardware acceleration that the vSphere API for Array Integration provides to achieve zeroing of blocks to isolate virtual machines and promote security. Some SSDs advertise support for hardware acceleration and specifically for the WRITE SAME (Zero) SCSI operation for zeroing blocks. VMFS metadata also relies on blocks being zeroed before use. However, some SSDs do not zero blocks as expected, but complete WRITE SAME requests with GOOD status. As a result, ESXi considers non-zeroed blocks as zeroed, which causes VMFS metadata inconsistencies and data integrity issues. To avoid such data inconsistency issues, that are critical to the normal operation of the vCenter Server system and data availability, WRITE SAME (Zero) operations are disabled by default for local SSDs as of ESX 7.0. As a consequence, certain operations on VMFS datastores might slow down.

  Workaround: You can turn on WRITE SAME (Zero) SCSI operations by using the following ESXCLI command:
    esxcli storage core device vaai status set -d -Z 1
  For example: esxcli storage core device vaai status set -d naa.55cd2e414fb3c242 -Z 1
  If you see performance issues with VMFS datastores, confirm with vendors if SSDs with hardware acceleration can actually support WRITE SAME (Zero) SCSI operations.

To collapse the list of previous known issues, click here.