Urgent Patch (8.0U1c) Available to Prevent Inaccessible Data Risk for VMs on vSAN ESA (Version 8.0, 8.0 P01, 8.0 U1, 8.0U1a (EP1))

Products

• VMware vSAN

Issue/Introduction

This article provides information regarding a potential risk of inaccessible data, which is rare and specific to vSAN ESA. VMware publishes this KB to strongly recommend upgrading to 8.0U1c to prevent the data risk.

Symptoms:

VMs running on vSAN ESA with version 8.0 / 8.0 P01 / 8.0 U1 / 8.0U1a (EP1) which currently have or have previously had snapshots face a risk of encountering inaccessible data over a certain period, manifested as following:

• VMs unable to power on
• Hosts not responding
• In some cases, PSOD

vSAN OSA of the same version does not have this issue.

Environment

VMware vSAN ESA below 8.0U1c

Cause

The likelihood of encountering this issue is low and limited to vSAN ESA with version 8.0, 8.0 P01, 8.0 U1, or 8.0U1a (EP1) only. However, the possibility of encountering it might gradually increase over time. The presence of a high frequency of snapshot creations and deletions (typically through frequent backup schedule) of more than twice a day increases the likelihood of encountering this. Changing the snapshot or backup schedule to be less frequent will reduce the chances of encountering this until upgrade can be performed.

Resolution

Fix for this issue was first introduced in version 8.0U1c however Broadcom recommends upgrading vSAN ESA clusters to VMware-ESXi-8.0U3h-25067014 (80P07) and above as soon as possible as it's the most stable version and includes fixes & recovery tools for the below ESA snapshot issues.

Release 8.0U2b Available to Prevent Host Failure / Inaccessible Data Risk due to Rare Snapshot-related Condition on vSAN ESA (Version 8.0, 8.0U1, 8.0U1c)
vSAN -- ESA -- vSAN Critical Error -- Migration of VM’s with snapshots from a vSAN ESA 8.x Datastore may result in inconsistencies under certain specific conditions