I am replacing a KVM server with a ESXi server. I just installed ESXi 5.5u1 and added a data store. The new server has 4 SSD drives in RAID 6 using hardware RAID. When I added the data store VMware says that the store is non-ssd.
Is this normal? Obviously VMware is seeing the virtual disk exposed by the RAID card not the SSD's themselves. Should VMware be told these are solid state disks for best performance? or should that just be left to the RAID card? I’m mostly worried about TRIM.
Best Answer
Sure, you can do this.
You can tell ESXi that a particular datastore is comprised of SSDs.
Here's how:
Enabling the SSD option on SSD based disks/LUNs that are not detected as SSD by default (2013188)
You end up having to set a datastore claim rule similar to:
This is a supported and normal solution. I have to do it for SSD datastores sitting behind HP RAID controllers.
TRIM isn't an issue. If you're using a hardware controller, let things be.