Home Support RAID Adaptec RAID 6805T Adaptec RAID 6805T 8 internal top-mounted ports, low profile, SAS 2.0 and Gen 2 PCI-Express (PCIe) Unified Serial RAID controller with Zero-Maintenance Cache Protection and Intelligent Power Management delivers exceptional performance, advanced data protection, maximum scalability and the lowest total cost. Home Support RAID Adaptec RAID 6805 Adaptec RAID 6805 8 internal port, low profile, SAS 2.0 and Gen 2 PCI-Express (PCIe) Unified Serial RAID controller with Zero-Maintenance Cache Protection and Intelligent Power Management delivers exceptional performance, advanced data protection, maximum scalability and the lowest total cost of ownership for.

Some time ago, we changed the hardware of our VM server. We replaced the RAID controller with an Adaptec 6805 because the old controller had some problems. The server run with ESXi 5.1.

The problem with our Adaptec controller was that ESXi didn't support it out-of-the-box. It was supported in general but the driver was not included. We thought that the new ESXi 6 could contain the driver, but it didn't. So we had to create our own ESXi image with the Adaptec driver.

We thought it shouldn't be a problem because there was much documentation about custom images:

Adaptec Raid 6805 Software

https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/04/using-the-vsphere-esxi-image-builder-cli.html
http://www.virten.net/2015/03/esxi-6-0-image-for-intel-nuc/
(DE) https://www.thomas- krenn.com/de/wiki/Individuelles_ESXi_5..

Some problems:

• We tried to create an image for version 6
• We used the free version of ESXi with all its limitations

A problem was that the documentation references an 'offline software depot'. You can download the offline depot for the paid version but it's not available for the free version - not as simple download. No offline deplot means no custom image - right? Not right, because it's also possible to use an online depot.

The problem was that the documentation didn't contain a full description. We found some hints in different blogs but no complete description.

Here are the steps how we created our custom ESXi 6 image with Adaptec 6805 driver:

Downloads

• ESXi
• PowerCLI 6
• Adaptec driver

Useful PowerCLI Documentation:
https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-55/index.jsp#..ve-EsxSoftwarePackage.html

Image creation

• Install PowerCLI 6 (and all required dependencies)
• Unzip the Adaptec driver to e.g. C:tempVMServer6
• Run PowerCLI as Administrator (sometimes, first launch of PowerCLI isn't working - simply close/run again)
• Execute following commands
  # Preconfigure
  Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
  cd c:tempVMServer6

  # Use online depot
  Add-EsxSoftwareDepot https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml
  # Add offline bundle for adaptec driver
  Add-EsxSoftwareDepot aacraid-6.0.6.2.1.41024-offline_bundle-2915492.zip

  # Check added depots
  $DefaultSoftwareDepots

  # Lists all ESXi-6.* profiles
  Get-EsxImageProfile -Name'ESXi-6.*' Multimedia audio controller driver for windows 7 filehippo.

  # Sets the base profile
  New-EsxImageProfile -CloneProfile'ESXi-6.0.0-20160104001-standard'-name'ESXi-6.0.0-20160104001-standard-Adaptec'-Vendor'rjahn@SIB'-AcceptanceLevel'CommunitySupported'

  # Lists all included drivers
  Get-EsxSoftwarePackage -Name'*aacraid*'

  # Adds adaptec driver from offline bundle
  Add-EsxSoftwarePackage -ImageProfile'ESXi-6.0.0-20160104001-standard-Adaptec'-SoftwarePackage scsi-aacraid

  # Creates boot image
  Export-ESXImageProfile -ImageProfile'ESXi-6.0.0-20160104001-standard-Adaptec'-ExportToISO-filepath C:tempVMServer6buildESXi-6.0.0-20160104001-standard-Adaptec.iso

  # Creates Bundle
  Export-ESXImageProfile -ImageProfile'ESXi-6.0.0-20160104001-standard-Adaptec'-ExportToBundle-filepath C:tempVMServer6buildESXi-6.0.0-20160104001-standard-Adaptec.zip

Version numbers may be different, but the procedure should work for you as well. The online depot:
https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml

was the most important thing. All other steps can be found in the standard documentation.

Compatible Hard Disk Controllers, RAID Controllers

The following list contains the list of hard disk controllers tested and compatible with the Windows version of Hard Disk Sentinel. Under DOS or Linux some hard disk controllers may provide more or less information.

Adaptec Raid Controller

If you experience non-detected hard disk drives, the issue is most likely causing by a driver of the hard disk controller, as described on No hard disk temperature/health displayed. What is wrong? Please check for updated driver(s) first from Driver Zone page and make sure you use the latest version of Hard Disk Sentinel. It is possible that an updated driver set supports the detection, especially under newer Windows releases (Vista, Windows 7, Server 2008).

Drivers Adaptec Raid 6805/6805q Software

(1) - To get all disk status, a driver update may be required for this controller. Visit the Driver Zone for recommended driver.
(2) - Supported of this controller is enhanced in version 2.90
(3) - Fully supported from version 2.70, recommended driver: 5.10.2600.692 (10-18-2006)
(4) - Supported in IDE mode only, NOT in AHCI mode
(5) - Supported by using ITE 8212F ATA/ATAPI BIOS (not RAID BIOS). Support enhanced in version 2.90
(6) - Supported, but compatibility problems may occur, especially in AHCI mode. Recommended to connect only up to one device and disable AHCI mode. Recommended driver: WHQL 1.17.50.2 (8-11-2009)
(7) - the RAID controller provides information about only one device per array, after installing the driver from Driver Zone. This is a limitation of the RAID controller, not a bug / limitation of Hard Disk Sentinel software.
(8) - required newer drivers for the NVRAID controller, recommended: 11.1.0.30, 6-30-2009
(9) - HP SMART Array RAID controllers provide error-counters only, so the actual health and S.M.A.R.T. data displayed based on them. Hard Disk Sentinel shows a notification that 'The status information and possible error(s) provided by the hard disk (RAID) controller. This may be different from the status of the physical drive.'

Drivers Adaptec Raid 6805/6805q Manual

Disks connected to RAID controllers (other than the listed under RAID Controllers section) should be configured as standalone disks. Detection of information about RAID arrays is possible only if a controller supports the special commands (like the controllers listed above). So using a such controller allows Hard Disk Sentinel to detect full information about SATA disks in RAID arrays. This feature is missing from the rest of the controllers (for example some older Adaptec, Promise, etc.) that's why the detection of hard disk information is not possible about disks configured as RAID arrays and connected to such controllers.