ESXi host is not able to identify 4k SSD storage devices

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• New LUNs were created on backend storage and were mapped to ESXi hosts.
• No issue with zoning configuration.
• ESXi host is able to recognize the devices but all paths to the devices are showing as "dead"
• 
• Trying different versions of ESXi/vmhba drivers and firmware does not helps.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0.x

Cause

• One possible reason that could lead to the symptom is that the storage LUN is mapped with an unsupported block size.
  • This can be checked using command "esxcli storage core device capacity list"
• ESXi by default does not support 4Kn SSD and NVMe devices, as a result, the devices would be displayed as All Paths Dead during configuration. 

Resolution

• The block size needs to be modified on backend storage to solve the issue.
• This is caused by default limit of the ESXi and thus no workaround can be provided.

Additional Information

• The mentioned issue is more often seen on Netapp-backed storage LUNs.
• Doc for reference:
  
  • https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vsphere/vsphere/8-0/vsphere-storage-8-0/managing-esxi-storage-devices/device-sector-formats.html