vSAN NVMe Cache Disks Not Detected

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

After a reboot , two NVME disks gone from esxi

Environment

ESXi 8

Cause

lspci to check all pci device

Normal host

0000:c2:00.5 RAID bus controller: Intel Corporation Intel Volume Management Device
0000:c2:02.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation RST VMD Managed Controller
0000:c2:03.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation RST VMD Managed Controller
0000:c2:04.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation RST VMD Managed Controller
0000:c2:05.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation RST VMD Managed Controller
0000:fe:00.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Device 3450

Issued host 

0000:c2:00.5 RAID bus controller: Intel Corporation Intel Volume Management Device
0000:c2:02.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation RST VMD Managed Controller
0000:c2:03.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation RST VMD Managed Controller
0000:fe:00.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Device 3450

There are two VMD controllers missing.

Resolution

• ensure VMD is properly enabled in BIOS
• Cold boot the issued host and check after boot up.
• If the drive still missing, please engage HW vendor to assist analyze

Additional Information

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000057787/memory-and-storage/intel-optane-memory.html