The backend storage volume corresponding to the datastore has been removed and the datastore appears as Inactive, when I want to remove (via vSphere Client connected to vCenter server) the NFS datastore I receive this error message:
Unmounting the datastore in vCenter Server fails with the error:
‘Call “HostDatastoreSystem.RemoveDatastore” form object “datastoreSystem-28” on vCenter Server “xxxx” failed. CannotRemove datastore ‘datastore_name’ because Storage I/O control is enabled on it. Correct it and re-try the operation

Solution:
To resolve this issue, log in directly to each ESXi host that has access to the inactive datastore and manually remove it.
– Connect to the vSphere ESXi host using SSH
– Run this command to list the mounted datastores:
esxcli storage nfs list

– Run this command to unmount the NFS datastore:
esxcli storage nfs remove –v datastorename

The inactive NFS datastore has been removed
Note: if your datastore display name have some spaces, please use quotes
More information: VMware
Sander Daems is founder and author of this blog and working as a Lead (Sr.) Consultant by UNICA ICT Solutions. Sander has over 15 years experience in IT, primary focus: virtualization and modern worksplace.
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Last week I had some issues with unmounting some old datastores in a vSphere 5.5 environment. In the GUI it look like:

When I tried to unmount / detach the datastore I received this error message::
Call “HostDatastoreSystem.RemoveDatastore” for object “datastoreSystem-330” on vCenter Server “itvvca01.domain.local” failed.
Operation failed, diagnostics report: Unable to query live VMFS state of volume.: No such file or directory
More information:

SAN01_VMFS04 datastore state accessible: false….

Solution:
You can easy detach the inaccessible datastores with the following command:
Get-Datastore SAN01_VMFS0* | Unmount-Datastore
Or per specific datastore:
Get-Datastore SAN01_VMFS01 | Unmount-Datastore
Get-Datastore SAN01_VMFS02 | Unmount-Datastore
More information: VMware
Sander Daems is founder and author of this blog and working as a Lead (Sr.) Consultant by UNICA ICT Solutions. Sander has over 15 years experience in IT, primary focus: virtualization and modern worksplace.
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Last week I installed some new vSphere hosts with flash disk storage. Some hosts has a yellow caution icon and a message stating:
Configuration Issues – System logs on host [hostname] are stored on non-persistent storage.
Solution:
Verify the location of System logs:
- In vSphere Client, select the host in the inventory panel.
- Click the Configuration tab, then click Advanced Settings under Software.
- Ensure that Syslog.global.logDir points to a persistent location.
The directory should be specified as [datastorename] path_to_file where the path is relative to the datastore. For example, [datastore1] /systemlogs.
- If the Syslog.global.logDir field is empty or explicitly points to a scratch partition, make sure that the field ScratchConfig.CurrentScratchLocation shows a location on persistent storage.

Result:
After a few minutes the logs are stored at the new location (in this case I used central storage):
More information: VMware
Sander Daems is founder and author of this blog and working as a Lead (Sr.) Consultant by UNICA ICT Solutions. Sander has over 15 years experience in IT, primary focus: virtualization and modern worksplace.
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Today I added some vSphere 5.0 u1 hosts in a new created cluster, the SAN will be delivered next week so I didn’t have central storage, to finish my new cluster setup I configured HA and DRS. After configuring HA I received this warning message:
The number of heartbeat datastores for host is 0, which is less than required: 2

Solution:
To (temporary (until the SAN is installed)) hide the warning message I configured the HA – Advanced Option:
- Log in to vCenter Server
- Right-click the cluster and click Edit Settings
- Click VMware HA > Advanced Options
- Under Option, add an entry for das.ignoreInsufficientHbDatastore
- Under Value, type: true

More information: VMware
Sander Daems is founder and author of this blog and working as a Lead (Sr.) Consultant by UNICA ICT Solutions. Sander has over 15 years experience in IT, primary focus: virtualization and modern worksplace.
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The settings that NetApp recommends (across all ESX hosts) are:
– NFS.HeartbeatFrequency(NFS.HeartbeatDelta in vSphere) = 12
– NFS.HeartbeatTimeout = 5 (default)
– NFS.HeartbeatMaxFailures = 10
When the number of NFS datastores are increased, we also recommend increasing the heap values:
– Net.TcpipHeapSize =>’30’ to Net.TcpipHeapMax => ‘120’
To automate this configuration I’ve wrote a PowerCLI script:
#====================================================================#
# SCRIPT: Configure_Advanced_NFS_parameters.ps1 #
# FUNCTION: Configure NFS / NetApp best practice #
# OWNER: Sander Daems #
# VENDOR: NetApp / FAS2040 #
# VSPHERE: 5.0 Update 1 build 623860 #
# CREATED: 07/01/2013 #
# MODIFIED: 20/03/2013 #
# VERSION: v.1.1 #
#====================================================================#
# CHANGELOG: #
# #
# v.1.0 #
# - Created script; #
# #
#====================================================================#
# HOST - Specify host and connect #
#====================================================================#
$ESXiHost = Read-Host "Enter ESXi Host name or IP"
Connect-VIServer $ESXiHost
#====================================================================#
# ADVANCED - Update TCP Settings #
#====================================================================#
Set-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -VMHost $ESXiHost -Name Net.TcpipHeapSize -Value 32
Set-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -VMHost $ESXiHost -Name Net.TcpipHeapMax -Value 128
#====================================================================#
# ADVANCED - Update NFS Settings #
#====================================================================#
Set-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -VMHost $ESXiHost -Name NFS.MaxVolumes -Value 256
Set-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -VMHost $ESXiHost -Name NFS.HeartbeatMaxFailures -Value 10
Set-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -VMHost $ESXiHost -Name NFS.HeartbeatFrequency -Value 12
Set-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -VMHost $ESXiHost -Name NFS.HeartbeatTimeout -Value 5
#====================================================================#
# SCRIPT FINISHED #
#====================================================================#
Write-Host "Script finished..." -foregroundcolor yellow
#====================================================================#
More information / source: NetApp Whitepaper
More information / source: VMware KB , VMware KB, VMware KB
Sander Daems is founder and author of this blog and working as a Lead (Sr.) Consultant by UNICA ICT Solutions. Sander has over 15 years experience in IT, primary focus: virtualization and modern worksplace.
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Categories: VMware Tags: Advanced Parameters, Datastore, FAS2040, HeapSize, Heartbeat, NetApp, NFS, PowerCLI, TCP, VMware, vSphere 5
Last week I was configuring some new vSphere 5.1 (Enterprise) hosts in a dedicated cluster and created some VMFS 5.58 datastores at the Dell Eq. PS6000 SAN with latest firmware, after configuring SIOC I received this error message:
The datastore is connected to one or more pre-4.1 hosts that do not support Storage I/O Control.

That’s weird, I’ve reinstalled all hosts (not updated) and created new datastores, there are no vSphere 4.1 hosts in this cluster (even connected to the datastore) and the PS6000 supports SIOC..
Solution:
Not really a solution.. but you can only configure SIOC with the Enterprise Plus license.. crap!
More information: VMware Product Compare , VMware KB
Sander Daems is founder and author of this blog and working as a Lead (Sr.) Consultant by UNICA ICT Solutions. Sander has over 15 years experience in IT, primary focus: virtualization and modern worksplace.
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I’m upgrading some hosts in my lab with vSphere 5 patch 1, I need to upload the zip packages from my laptop to my datastore.. it would be nice to do this via PowerCLI
The code:
$DataStore = Get-VMHost esx02.vmpros.lan | Get-Datastore ESX02_VMFS01
Copy-DatastoreItem C:\vmpros\patch1\ $DataStore.DatastoreBrowserPath -Recurse

Result:

Sander Daems is founder and author of this blog and working as a Lead (Sr.) Consultant by UNICA ICT Solutions. Sander has over 15 years experience in IT, primary focus: virtualization and modern worksplace.
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After I placed two new 146 GB SAS hard disks to an ESXi 4.1 host, configured a new array, try to add a new datastore with my vSphere Client I received this warning:
Call “HostDatastoreSystem.QueryVmfsDatastoreCreateOptions” for object “ha-datastoresystem” on ESXi “SERVERNAME” failed.

After reading VMwareKB 1008886 and following the instructions I solved the issue..
Solution:

Commandline:
dd if=/dev/zero of="/vmfs/devices/disks/vml.0000000000766d686261313a313a30" bs=512 count=34 conv=notrunc
Output:
34+0 records in
34+0 records out
More information: VMware
Sander Daems is founder and author of this blog and working as a Lead (Sr.) Consultant by UNICA ICT Solutions. Sander has over 15 years experience in IT, primary focus: virtualization and modern worksplace.
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For a SAN to SAN migration I need to list all our datastores and blocksizes, It couldn’t be easier to do this with a script. LucD has written a great script to list VMFS Name, VMFS Version and VMFS Blocksize
New-VIProperty -Name VMFSVersion -ObjectType Datastore ` -Value { param($ds) $ds.ExtensionData.Info.Vmfs.Version } ` -BasedONextensionProperty ‘Info’ ` -Force
New-VIProperty -Name VMFSBlockSizeMB -ObjectType Datastore ` -Value { param($ds) $ds.ExtensionData.Info.Vmfs.BlockSizeMB } ` -BasedONextensionProperty ‘Info’ ` -Force
Get-Datastore | Select Name,VMFSVersion,VMFSBlockSizeMB
Output:

Credits goto: Luc Dekens
Sander Daems is founder and author of this blog and working as a Lead (Sr.) Consultant by UNICA ICT Solutions. Sander has over 15 years experience in IT, primary focus: virtualization and modern worksplace.
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