After writing Some notes on ESXi smartinfo throwing error Cannot open device, I bit the bullet and experimented with disabling the vmw_ahci driver (shown as ahci in the storage adapters view), which forces the sata_ahci driver to be used (shown as ahci in the storage adapters view).
Poof! All problems were gone.
All? Not all: on the console and terminal, there seems to be some throttling going on, as I observed the read or write speed limit to be capped somewhere close to 60 MB/s. More on that in a future post.
Basically, the smartinfo trouble tripped me into thinking the device was bad, where I should have understood that the latency warnings in the vmkernel.log file indicated the vmw_ahci driver was the culprit. Oh well: never too old to learn.
References
I’m not alone on this; these posts also discuss latency issued:
This is different from the transfer speed issues that were part of ESXi 4, though I have a gut feeling there is some correlation:
On AHCI: Advanced Host Controller Interface – Wikipedia
On native drivers versus legacy drivers:
- [Wayback] Troubleshooting native drivers in ESXi 5.5 or later
A new native driver model feature is introduced in VMware ESXi 5.5 that replaces an older model that employs a Linux compatibility layer.
In this article:
- Drivers using the new model are referred to as native drivers
- Drivers using the old model are referred to as legacy VMKLinux drivers
This article provides troubleshooting information for the native driver model.
- [Wayback] ESXi 5.5 introduces a new Native Device Driver Architecture Part 2
…
A new concept of driver priority loading is introduced with the Native Device Driver model and the diagram below provides the current ordering of how device drivers are loaded.
As you can see OEM drivers will have the highest priority and by default Native Drivers will be loaded before “legacy” vmklinux drivers. On a clean installation of ESXi 5.5 you should see at least two of these directories: /etc/vmware/default.map.d/ and /etc/vmware/driver.map.d/ which contains driver map files pertaining to Native Device and “legacy” vmklinux drivers.
…
Steps
This is how you disable the native vmware_ahci driver:
- Suspend all virtual machines
- Bring the ESXi box into maintenance mode, for instance by running
esxcli system maintenanceMode set --enable true
- On the console or terminal, run this:
# esxcli system module set --enabled=false --module=vmw_ahci
# reboot
- After booting, get the ESXi box out of maintenance mode, for instance by running
esxcli system maintenanceMode set --enable false
- Power on all suspended virtual machines
To re-enable the native vmware_ahci driver (in case not all your SATA devices are recognised):
- Suspend all virtual machines
- Bring the ESXi box into maintenance mode, for instance by running
esxcli system maintenanceMode set --enable true
- On the console or terminal, run this:
# esxcli system module set --enabled=true --module=vmw_ahci
# reboot
- After booting, get the ESXi box out of maintenance mode, for instance by running
esxcli system maintenanceMode set --enable false
- Power on all suspended virtual machines
Suspending and unsuspending all virtual machines can be done on the console/terminal, see Source: VMware ESXi console: viewing all VMs, suspending and waking them up: part 5 how.
Results: storage adapters
With native vmware_ahci, the storage adapters are these:
Storage adapters with vmw_ahci enabled
With legacy ahci, the storage adapters are these:
Storage adapters with vmw_ahci disabled
What you see is that the Patsburg 6 Port SATA AHCI Controller has been split from a single vmw_ahci adapter in six separate ahci adapters.
Results: read/write speeds and latency when suspending/unsuspending all virtual machines
With vmware_ahci, the storage adapters are these:
Latency issues after resume/suspend cycle of all virtual machines: the latency stays up in the 15 millisecond region
With ahci, the storage adapters are these:
Latency after resume/suspend cycle of all virtual machines: the latency goes down to the 2 millisecond region
For both cases, the read and write rates are roughly the same (and OK for an EVO 860 SATA device). The latency drops a lot (and with prolonged vmw_ahci use goes up to like 15+ seconds, that is 15000+ milliseconds):
[Wayback] SSD 860 EVO 2.5″ SATA III 500GB Memory & Storage – MZ-76E500B/AM | Samsung US
Speeds are consistent, even under heavy workloads and multi-tasking allowing for faster file transfer. The 860 EVO performs at sequential read speeds up to 550 MB/s* with Intelligent TurboWrite technology, and sequential write speeds up to 520 MB/s. The TurboWrite buffer size* is upgraded from 12 GB to 78 GB.
* Performance may vary based on SSD’s firmware version and system hardware & configuration. Sequential write performance measurements are based on Intelligent TurboWrite technology. Sequential performance measurements based on CrystalDiskMark v.5.0.2 and I0meter 1.1.0.
The sequential write performances are Intelligent TurboWrite region are 300 MB/s for 250/500 GB and 500 MB/s for 1 TB.
* Test system configuration: Intel Core i5-3550 CPU @ 3.3 GHz, 4 GB, OS – Windows 7 Ultimate x64, Chipset: ASUS P8H77-V .
* The TurboWrite buffer size varies based on the capacity of the SSD; 12 GB model, 22 GB for 500 GB model, 42 GB for 1 TB model and 2/4 TB for 78 GB. For more information on the TurboWrite, please visit
http://www.samsungssd.com.
–jeroen
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