VMware VSAN – How to Upgrade or Replace a Disk Controller?

The lab environment I utilize was recently upgraded to Dell R720 servers and VSAN was introduced as an additional storage tier.

To date the performance has been fantastic! However, the disk controllers that were shipped with the servers are now no longer on the VSAN HCL

As a result, new disk controllers have been purchased and now need to be installed in to each server.

Here is the process to follow that will allow each of the new controllers to be installed and without disruption to the workloads currently running on VSAN (VDI Environment & Multiple Server VM’s in this case):

1. Delete the 1^st disk group from HOST1 & identify the physical disks within the server that correlates - VMware Article here
2. Run a compliance check on each storage policy that is currently active & allow for remediation to take place (the policy will ensure that any objects of components that once resided on the now deleted disk group are re-copied or re-striped elsewhere in the distributed file system used by VSAN)
3. Place HOST1 in maintenance mode selecting one of the three options available: migrate all data objects, ensure object access (moves object components to ensure that minimum availability is achieved) or leave data objects in place (data is re-synced once host is back online - this is carries more risk)
4. Power off HOST1
5. Remove the disks identified in step one that are currently attached to the old unsupported disk controller and re-attach to the new controller. Ensure disks are wiped and that ‘pass-through’ mode is enabled again so that VSAN can take advantage of the disk once again.
6. Power on HOST1
7. Re-add disks back in to VSAN cluster and re-establish a new disk group
8. Repeat steps 1- 7 until all disk groups are attached to the new disk controller
9. Move on to HOST2 & execute steps 1 – 8
10. Move on to HOST3 & execute steps 1 – 8
11. Etc. Etc.

 NB: To ensure that you have a supported VSAN configuration, check out the VSAN HCL or better yet - use a VSAN ready node that is purpose built by various X86 server vendors.