Recommended paths for identifying and activating drive LEDs on HPE server platforms

Products

• VMware vSAN

Issue/Introduction

This document details the recommended and supported paths for identifying and activating device LEDs on HPE server platforms.
In general, there are 3 ways of identifying and activating device LEDs under ESXI (esxcli cmd utility, ssacli cmd utility and vCenter GUI). At the time of writing of this KB, there is no single path that works for all HPE server generations.  The objective of this documentation, is to capture the supported mechanisms for identifying and activate device LEDs for HPE server SKUs.

Environment

VMware vSAN 6.7.x

Resolution

Note:

• The approaches mentioned below work for both the RAID and passthrough mode.
• Gen9 servers use the esxcli utility.
• Gen10 servers use the ssacli utility.

Gen9 servers:
 

HPE server model	LED management support	ESXi version (inbox)	ESXi version (async)
DL and ML without SAS expander	Yes	6.0U3/6.5U1/6.5U2/6.7	6.0U3/6.5U1/6.5U2/6.7
DL and ML with SAS expander	Yes		6.0U3/6.5U1/6.5U2/6.7
XL170r and XL190r in Apollo 2000 series chassis	Yes		6.0U3/6.5U1/6.5U2/6.7
Synergy 480 and 660 with D3940	Yes		6.0U3/6.5U1/6.5U2/6.7

Get Disk Location
This feature allows you to get the physical layout of a SCSI device. If the SCSI device is a RAID volume, you can use the following command to acquire the physical disks that are used as part of the RAID volume:
$ esxcli storage core device raid list -d <SCSI_device_name>
Physical Location: port:box:bay 1I:6:2
If the SCSI device is a standalone disk that is directly attached, you can use the following command to acquire the physical location of the disk:
$ esxcli storage core device physical get -d <SCSI_device_name>
Physical Location: port:box:bay 1I:4:3

Turn Locator LED On or Off
You can enable or disable the locator LED on the disk bay. This feature is supported only if the HBA controller and server chassis support locator LED operations. Use one of the following methods to enable or disable locator LEDs in a vSphere environment:
Using esxcli to enable or disable the locator LED on a SCSI device: esxcli storage core device set

Options:
--led-state=locator
--led-duration=<duration, in seconds>
-d=SCSI_device_name
If the SCSI device is a RAID volume, this command enables or disables the locator LEDs of all disks that form the RAID volume.

Using vSphere Web Client to enable or disable locator LEDs on a device in a vSAN disk group:

1.    Navigate to the vSAN cluster.
2.    Click the Configure tab.
3.    Under vSAN, click Disk Management.
4.    Navigate to a host disk group and select one or more storage devices from the list.
5.    Click the All Actions menu and select Turn Locator LED on or Turn Locator LED off.


For HPE Gen10 servers, please see the HPE Smart Storage Administrator User guide for additional information on SSACLI
        
Examples: ./ssacli controller slot=2 logicaldrive 2 modify led=on # Will activate logical drive 2
                  ./ssacli controller slot=2 physicaldrive 2 modify led=on # Will activate physical drive 2