vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM) compliance failures during ESXi 9.0.2 upgrade for Micron 7450 and Intel NVMe devices

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms

When upgrading clusters from ESXi 8.0.3 to 9.0.2 using vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM), the hardware compatibility check fails with the following symptoms:

• Hardware devices such as Micron 7450 Pro NVMe SSD, Intel NVMe DC SSD, or Sentinel Rock Controllers are marked as "Non-Compliant" or "Incompatible."
• Impacted devices may show a "yellow" status in the vCenter Server hardware compatibility report.
• Vendor-branded disks (e.g., Cisco or HPE branded) are misidentified as generic Micron or Intel devices.
• vLCM logs or UI may show: HCL check failed for test Controller firmware is VMware certified due to yellow status on host.

Environment

ESX 9, 9.0.2
VCF 9 

Cause

This issue is typically caused by one of two factors introduced with ESXi 9.0:

1. New Device Classifications: ESXi 9.0 introduces "Restricted" and "End of Life" (EOL) categories for PCI devices. Devices in the EOL category are no longer supported and will lose storage access after the upgrade Deprecated devices in ESX 9.0 and implications for support.
2. Firmware Misidentification: Specific firmware versions on NVMe devices (particularly Micron 7450/7500 series) can cause vLCM to misidentify the hardware as a generic version rather than the OEM-certified version, triggering an HCL validation failure HCL compatibility check Failed.

Resolution

To resolve these compliance errors, follow these steps:

1. Identify Hardware IDs per Determining Network/Storage firmware and driver version in ESXi

Retrieve the specific PCI identifiers (Vendor ID, Device ID, Sub-Vendor ID, and Sub-Device ID) for the non-compliant devices. This can be done via the vSphere Client (Host > Hardware > PCI Devices) or example by running the following command on the ESXi host:

 

lspci -v

2. Verify Against Compatibility Guide

Cross-reference the identified PCI IDs against the Broadcom Compatibility Guide (BCG) for ESXi 9.0.

• If marked as EOL: The hardware must be replaced before upgrading to ESXi 9.0.2. Proceeding with the upgrade will result in a loss of storage access.
• If marked as Restricted: The upgrade can proceed, but the device will receive no new features and only "best-effort" support.
• If marked as Certified but failing: Proceed to Step 3.

3. Remediate Misidentification (Firmware)

If the device is listed as supported in the BCG but still fails compliance:

• Verify if the device is being identified as a generic drive rather than the vendor-branded version (e.g., HPE, Dell, or Cisco branded).
• Work with your hardware vendor to apply the correct OEM-validated firmware to ensure proper device identification by the ESXi 9.0 driver.

4. Update vSAN HCL Database (vSAN Environments Only)

Ensure the vSAN HCL database is manually updated to the latest version to ensure correct device identification and health check status.

Additional Information

Related Information:

• Deprecated devices in ESX 9.0 and implications for support (391170)
• HCL compatibility check Failed (414231)