The system is experiencing a prolonged duration during the "system-storage initialization" phase.

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

The system is experiencing a prolonged duration during the system-storage initialization phase while booting because it is unable to read the four additional drives installed on vmhba0.

Verification Steps 

• vmhbaX: An onboard controller to which additional drives are connected. This controller is experiencing the reported issue

HBA Name  Driver     Link State  UID          Capabilities  Description
--------  ---------  ----------  -----------  ------------  -----------
vmhbaX    vmw_ahci   link-n/a    sata.vmhba0                (0000:00:07.0) Intel Corporation Wellsburg RAID Controller
vmhbaY   nvme_pcie  link-n/a    pcie.100                   (0000:01:00.0) Swissbit AG Non-Volatile memory controller

• The additional drives connected to vmhba0.

t10.ATA_____MT################16A_03################EN_____________4######8 : Local ATA Disk (t10.ATA_____MT################16A_03################EN_____________4######8)
   vmhbaX:C0:T2:L0 LUN:0 state:active Local HBA vmhba0 channel 0 target 2

t10.ATA_____MT################16A_03################EN_____________4######8 : Local ATA Disk (t10.ATA_____MT################16A_03################EN_____________4######A)
   vmhbaX:C0:T3:L0 LUN:0 state:active Local HBA vmhba0 channel 0 target 3

Environment

vSphere ESXi 7.x
vSphere ESXi 8.x

 

Cause

All IO operations failed due to timeouts, which points to a issue with the controller. This problem is associated with factors such as hardware capacity, firmware limitations, or similar constraints. 

Cause validation: 

• The host is unable to access information from the additional drives connected to vmhbaX.
• Any commands directed towards these drives resulted in timeouts, indicating a communication failure or resource issue with the onboard controller

t10.ATA_____MT################16A_03################EN_____________4######8 : Local ATA Disk (t10.ATA_____MT################16A_03################EN_____________4######8)
   vmhbaX:C0:T2:L0 LUN:0 state:active Local HBA vmhba0 channel 0 target 2

t10.ATA_____MT################16A_03################EN_____________4######8 : Local ATA Disk (t10.ATA_____MT################16A_03################EN_____________4######A)
   vmhbaX:C0:T3:L0 LUN:0 state:active Local HBA vmhba0 channel 0 target 3

• The /var/run/log/vmkernel.log indicates that IO operations are being aborted over the controller. Based on the logs, the aborts are being reported by the vmw_ahci driver, confirming that these IO aborts are originating from the vmhbaX adapter
  
  2025-03-07T01:51:28.563Z In(182) vmkernel: cpu0:1140755)vmw_ahci[000000070]:<2> LogExceptionSignal:Signal: --|--|--|AB|--|--|--|--|--|--|-- (0x0008) Curr: --|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|-- (0x0000)
2025-03-07T01:51:28.563Z In(182) vmkernel: cpu0:262607)vmw_ahci[000000070]:<2> LogExceptionProcess:Process: --|--|--|AB|--|--|--|--|--|--|-- (0x0008) Curr: --|--|--|AB|--|--|--|--|--|--|-- (0x0008)
2025-03-07T01:51:28.563Z In(182) vmkernel: cpu0:262607)vmw_ahci[000000070]:<2> ExceptionHandlerWorld:AHCI_SIGNAL_ABORT_REQUEST signal.


• The drivers installed are UpToDate 

# vmkload_mod -s vmw_ahci | grep -i version
 Version: 2.0.17-1vmw.803.0.0.24022510

Resolution

Engaging the Hardware Support team to assist in diagnosing and resolving the issue, ensuring a thorough investigation into the underlying cause.