The timeout parameter controls how many seconds the ESXi host must retry the I/O commands to a storage device in an all paths down (APD) state. You can change the default timeout value.

The timeout period begins immediately after the device enters the APD state. After the timeout ends, the host marks the APD device as unreachable. The host stops its attempts to retry any I/O that is not coming from virtual machines. The host continues to retry virtual machine I/O.

By default, the timeout parameter on your host is set to 140 seconds. You can increase the value of the timeout if, for example, storage devices connected to your ESXi host take longer than 140 seconds to recover from a connection loss.

Note: If you change the timeout parameter after the device becomes unavailable, the change does not take effect for that particular APD incident.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the host.
  2. Click the Configure tab.
  3. Under System, click Advanced System Settings.
  4. In the Advanced System Settings table, select the Misc.APDTimeout parameter and click the Edit icon.
  5. Change the default value.
    You can enter a value between 20 and 99999 seconds.