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.

Cluster-level hardware compatibility checks are available only for vSAN clusters that you manage with a single image. If a vSAN cluster uses baselines, hardware compatibility checks are not available. Also, if a cluster uses a single vSphere Lifecycle Manager image but vSAN is not enabled for that cluster, hardware compatibility checks for that cluster are not available. The hardware compatibility checks for vSAN clusters are performed against the vSAN HCL.
Note: To perform a hardware compatibility check for a vSAN cluster, the vSAN HCL data that is available to vSphere Lifecycle Manager must be up to date. vSAN HCL data is synchronized automatically or manually, in environments without connection to the Internet. For more information about maintaining the vSAN HCL data up-to-date, see the vSAN documentation.

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.

During a hardware compatibility check for a cluster, vSphere Lifecycle Manager performs the following tasks:
  • 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.
Note: vSphere Lifecycle Manager performs the full driver and firmware verification only if you configure vSphere Lifecycle Manager with a hardware support manager and add a firmware add-on to the vSphere Lifecycle Manager image. Without using a hardware support manager, vSphere Lifecycle Manager only validates the PCI device and driver versions and the disk drive version.

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.

The disk drives in a vSAN cluster and the firmware installed on the drives are of paramount importance for the overall vSAN cluster health. For example, a faulty disk drive firmware might cause performance issues and unexpected vSAN input-output behavior. You can use vSphere Lifecycle Manager hardware support managers to perform disk drive firmware upgrades. Before you upgrade the disk drive firmware, however, you must ensure that the target firmware version is supported as per the vSAN HCL.
Note: For each device, the vSAN HCL lists the earliest supported firmware version. All firmware versions later than the specified in the vSAN HCL are supported.

Supported Disk Drives Types

vSphere Lifecycle Manager validates the following types of disk drives and storage device configurations:
  • 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

vSphere Lifecycle Manager can validate the physical SAS/SATA disk drives behind single-disk RAID-0 logical volumes. The following requirements exist:
  • 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.Each entry in the list of compliant or non-compliant disks contains a title with labels and a detailed description.

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

  1. In the vSphere Client, navigate to a vSAN cluster that you manage with a single image.
  2. On the Updates tab, select Hosts > Hardware Compatibility.
    In the Hardware Compatibility pane, you see the results from the previous compatibility check.
  3. In the Hardware Compatibility pane, click the Run Checks button.

Results

vSphere Lifecycle Manager displays all compatibility information and issues in the Hardware Compatibility pane. You can see detailed compatibility information for each PCI device or disk drive.

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

  1. In the vSphere Client, navigate to a vSAN cluster that you manage with a single image.
  2. On the Updates tab, select Hosts > Hardware Compatibility.
    In the Hardware Compatibility pane, you see the results from the previous compatibility check.
  3. Click the Disks button.
    You see a list of all non-compliant and compliant disk devices.
  4. Click the disk device whose compliance status you want to override.
  5. Click the Change Classification button.
    A drop-down menu appears.

    Change the compliance status of a disk device by selecting an option from the drop-down menu.

  6. Select the compliance status to apply to the disk device.
    • To mark the issue as compliant, select Mark Issue As Verified.
    • To mark the issue as non-compliant, select Flag as Non-Compliant.
    The Mark Issue As Verified option is not available for compliant devices. The Flag as Non-Compliant option is unavailable if the disk device is non-compliant
  7. (Optional) To undo the override selection, select Don't Override from the Change Classification drop-down menu.

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. When a disk is marked as compliant, a User Reviewed label appears and a text that device is marked as compliant is displayed.

If you marked the device as non-compliant, a Flagged label appears for the disk group.When a disk is marked as non-compliant, a Flagged label appears and a text that device is flagged as non-compliant is displayed.

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

vSphere Lifecycle Manager performs an automatic hardware compatibility check for any vSAN cluster that you manage with a single image in the following cases.
  • 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.