I got a second RAID controller (AVAGO 9440-8i) to put in my Dell T440 server (first RAID controller is a H740P). I got the Broadcom U.2 enabler cable and two WD Gold 2TB drives.
I've updated ESXi, the lsi_mr3 package, the whole original Dell-system (iDRAC, all Firmwares, BIOS etc), the firmware of the new RAID controller.
I can configure the virtual drive with both NVMe drives just fine, but it does not show up in ESXi. In legacy mode I get "0 drives handled by BIOS", in UEFI the controllers dont output anything. In the configuration I cannot select a boot drive
I've tried pretty much everything that I can think of and nothing seems to do anything.
- switched from legacy to UEFI -> The adapter gets detected by ESXi as vmhba3 and there is a "VirtualSes" enclosure but nothing else.
- disabled "BIOS", unmap and others in the RAID controller
- factory reset controller
The second RAID controller is in PCIe-Slot 5, while the H740P is in Slot 4. Slot 3 is making the fans go absolutely crazy and I would suspect, that it wont make a difference anyways, right?!
Does anyone here has an idea, that could help? Of course I can provide logs, outputs etc as needed.
Thanks in advance for any help!
Edit: While it’s technically a AVAGO controller (since Broadcom is part of AVAGO) it’s listed in the HCL as LSI / Broadcom.
https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/detail.php?deviceCategory=io&productid=43162
When in UEFI mode, the controller is shown as vmhba3 and gets loaded with the lsi_mr3 driver.
