Running a hardware compatibility check on your clusters before remediating them helps you ensure good vSAN cluster health and avoid entering into unsupported and unwanted configurations after remediation.
When you initiate a hardware compatibility check for a cluster, vSphere Lifecycle Manager scans the image and verifies that all elements of the image are compatible with the cluster hardware. vSphere Lifecycle Manager validates only those hardware devices that vSAN uses. Because cluster-level hardware compatibility checks validate the compatibility between the cluster hardware and the cluster image, the compatibility results might not be accurate unless the cluster is successfully remediated and the image is applied to all hosts in the cluster.
Hardware compatibility issues are reported as warnings, but they do not prevent you from remediating the hosts in the cluster against the image.
- Verifies that all storage device drivers are certified for use with the ESXi version specified in the image.
- Verifies that the image contains the correct storage device driver and firmware versions as per vSAN HCL.
- Suggests a compatible storage device driver version for the cluster as per vSAN HCL.
- Verifies that all disk drives in the cluster are certified for use with the ESXi version specified in the image as per vSAN HCL.
- Verifies that the physical disk drives behind RAID-0 logical volumes are certified for use with the ESXi version specified in the image as per vSAN HCL.
- Verifies that the disk drive firmware version specified in the image for the cluster is equal to or higher than the earliest supported firmware version as per vSAN HCL.
- Verifies that the target firmware version for the physical drives behind RAID-0 logical volumes is equal to or higher than the earliest supported firmware version as per vSAN HCL.
Disk Drive Validation
During a cluster-level hardware compatibility check, vSphere Lifecycle Manager verifies that the disk drives that vSAN uses are supported and certified as per the vSAN Hardware Compatibility List (HCL). vSphere Lifecycle Manager also ensures that the disk drive firmware version specified in the cluster image is compatible with the cluster hardware.
Supported Disk Drives Types
- HDD (SAS/SATA)
- SSD (SAS/SATA)
- SAS/SATA disk drives behind single-disk RAID-0 logical volumes
System Requirements for Disk Drive Validation
- vCenter Server 7.0 Update 3 and later
- ESXi 7.0 and later
RAID-0 Logical Volumes
- The RAID controller is in a RAID or mixed mode.
For more information about the RAID and mixed mode, see the VMware knowledge base article at https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/53573.
- vCenter Server 7.0 Update 3 and later
- ESXi 7.0 and later
- The hardware support manager must be upgraded and certified to work with vSphere 7.0 Update 3.
If the you do not use an upgraded version of the hardware support manager, the compliance status of the physical drives behind RAID-0 logical volumes is unknown. In this case, you must manually validate the disk drives and the target firmware version and override the compliance status for those disks.
Disk Drive Validation Results
vSphere Lifecycle Manager does not display a disk drive compatibility status and compatibility information for every single disk in the vSAN disk group. vSphere Lifecycle Manager groups the disk drives that vSAN uses by vendor, model, target firmware version, capacity, and part number. That is, all disk drives by the same vendor, the same model, and with the same target firmware version form one entry in the list of disk devices.
Disk drives can be compliant or non-compliant. In the cases when vSphere Lifecycle Manager cannot find a unique match for a disk device in the vSAN HCL, vSphere Lifecycle Manager prompts you to manually specify the exact device that you want to validate. vSphere Lifecycle Manager then calculates the compliance status based on your selection.
When vSphere Lifecycle Manager is unable to determine the disk drive compliance, the respective devices are listed as non-compliant. You can manually validate those devices and set the compliance status to compliant or non-compliant.
For each entry in the disk device list, you can view summarized information about the disk, the compliance status, the number of affected hosts, and a label that shows whether the compliance status is manually set or whether the device is certified. The Used by vSAN label is attached to all disk devices used by vSAN.
If you expand the entry, you can view detailed compliance information about the respective disk device and the affected hosts.
When a new disk is added to a vSAN cluster, you must manually re-run the check to obtain the new compliance information about the cluster. Similarly, if you remove a disk from the vSAN disk group, you must re-run the hardware compatibility check to obtain an updated compliance information about the cluster.
Check the Hardware Compatibility of a Cluster
For a vSAN cluster that you manage with a single image, you can check the compliance between the image components and the hardware in the cluster. The check is performed against the vSAN Hardware Compatibility List (vSAN HCL) and ensures that if the image is applied to the hosts, the result after remediation is in accordance with the vSAN HCL.
Prerequisites
- Verify that vSAN is enabled for the cluster.
- Verify that the cluster uses a single image.
- Verify that all hosts in the cluster are from the same vendor.
- To validate the compatibility between the PCI device and disk device hardware and target firmware version, verify that the image for the cluster includes a firmware add-on.
- Verify that you have the proper privileges. See vSphere Lifecycle Manager Privileges For Using Images.
Procedure
Results
What to do next
Review the result from the hardware compatibility check.
Resolve any issues before you remediate the cluster.
Change the Compliance Status of a Disk Device Manually
You can manually change the compliance status of a disk device and mark it as compliant or non-compliant.
In cases when the compliance status of a disk drive is unavailable, you must perform the hardware compatibility check manually and mark the device as compliant or non-compliant.
Prerequisites
- vCenter Server 7.0 Update 3
- Verify that vSAN is enabled for the cluster.
- Verify that the cluster uses a single image.
- Verify that all hosts in the cluster are from the same vendor.
- Verify that you have the proper privileges. See vSphere Lifecycle Manager Privileges For Using Images.
Procedure
Results
You changed the compliance status of a disk device. However, the disk device remains in its original list until you run a new hardware compatibility check.
If you marked the device as verified, a User Reviewed label appears for the disk group.
If you marked the device as non-compliant, a Flagged label appears for the disk group.
What to do next
Run a new hardware compatibility check so that the new compliance status for a disk is saved.
Automatically Triggered Hardware Compatibility Checks for vSAN Clusters
Starting with vSphere 7.0 Update 1, vSphere Lifecycle Manager performs regular hardware compatibility checks for the vSAN clusters that you manage with a single image. In addition, certain vSphere Lifecycle Manager operations also trigger an automatic hardware compatibility check. Automated hardware compatibility checks are available for vSAN clusters that use a single image.
For information about hardware compatibility checks and instructions how to manually perform a hardware compatibility check for a cluster or for a single host, see Hardware Compatibility Checks.
vSphere Lifecycle Manager Operations That Trigger a Hardware Compatibility Check
- You edit the image for the cluster and save the image.
When you edit and save an image, vSphere Lifecycle Manager starts the Check hardware compatibility of cluster's host with image task even for clusters without vSAN. In such case, vSphere Lifecycle Manager only returns a warning that image hardware compatibility is not verified in non- vSAN clusters.
If the automatically triggered hardware compatibility task fails, you can still save the new image for the cluster.
- You initiate a remediation pre-check or remediation.
The hardware compatibility check is a part of the remediation pre-check and remediation task for vSAN clusters. If a cluster is not vSAN-enabled, vSphere Lifecycle Manager does not perform a hardware compatibility check when you initiate a remediation pre-check or remediation.
You can configure how vSphere Lifecycle Manager behaves in case of hardware compatibility issues.
- You add or remove a host to and from the cluster.
When you add or remove a host to and from the cluster, vSphere Lifecycle Manager invalidates the hardware compatibility check results for the cluster and issues a warning. You must rerun a hardware compatibility check to obtain valid information about potential hardware compatibility issues. Alternatively, you can remediate the cluster or run a remediation pre-check, which both automatically trigger a hardware compatibility check.
Regular Hardware Compatibility Checks
The vSAN Hardware Compatibility List (vSAN HCL) database changes regularly. For example, when VMware certifies new OEM devices, drivers, or firmware, those become part of the vSAN HCL database. Similarly, devices, drivers, or firmware that are not supported anymore are removed from the vSAN HCL database.
Changes in the vSAN HCL database might make your hardware compatibility results invalid and outdated. To provide you with valid hardware compatibility information, vSphere Lifecycle Manager runs a periodic hardware compatibility check against the latest vSAN HCL data.
The periodic hardware compatibility check is a preconfigured scheduled task that you can edit and force to run at any time. By default, the task runs every 24 hours. The scheduled task is configured at a vCenter Server level. If a vCenter Server system contains no vSAN clusters that you manage with a single image, vSphere Lifecycle Manager skips the scheduled hardware compatibility check. This periodic task runs only for vSAN clusters that you manage with a single image.