Dell PowerStore Protocol Endpoints appear as "Unknown" 512B devices in ESXi

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

When managing ESXi hosts connected to Dell PowerStore storage, administrators may observe "Unknown" devices with a very small capacity (e.g., 512 bytes) in the device list. These devices are not visible as usable datastores in vCenter Server.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi

Cause

These devices are Protocol Endpoints (PE) used for the vVol (Virtual Volumes) architecture.

By design, Dell PowerStore automatically creates and presents a PE to the ESXi host upon registration. Because PEs do not contain a standard VMFS datastore, ESXi reports them as "unknown" devices.

Resolution

This is expected behavior, and no action is required.

• If there is a strict requirement to hide or remove these Protocol Endpoints from the hosts, contact Dell Support to investigate if the presentation can be disabled at the storage array level.