Supportability for QNAP ES-2486dc NAS with QDA-SA3 SATA-to-SAS Adapters and Intel SSDs in vSphere 8.x

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

The QNAP ES-2486dc is a dual-controller SAS-based NAS. To utilize more cost-effective SATA drives, QNAP provides the QDA-SA3 adapter to bridge the SATA interface to the SAS backplane, allowing for dual-path support at the hardware layer.

Environment

 

• VMware vSphere 8.x
• QNAP ES-2486dc Enterprise NAS
• QNAP QDA-SA3 SATA-to-SAS Adapter
• Intel SSDSC2KB038T8R SATA SSD

 

Cause

The QNAP ES-2486dc uses a dual-controller SAS backplane. QDA-SA3 adapters are required to bridge single-port SATA drives to the dual-path SAS backplane to maintain high availability and controller failover capabilities.

Resolution

This configuration is supported if the following conditions are met:

1. Verify the QNAP ES-2486dc on the for the specific vSphere 8 update version in use.
2. Ensure the QDA-SA3 adapter is supported by QNAP for the specific NAS model. Note that Broadcom support focuses on iSCSI/NFS connectivity, while hardware adapter support is provided by the OEM.
3. Validate that the specific drive model (e.g., Intel SSDSC2KB038T8R) and its firmware version are listed on the .
4. Confirm the ESXi hosts use certified NICs and drivers for storage traffic.
5. Follow Multipath I/O (MPIO) best practices for iSCSI to ensure controller redundancy.
6. Check if a QNAP-customized ESXi ISO is recommended by the vendor for driver optimizations.

Additional Information

QNAP QDA-SA3 Product Page   https://www.qnap.com/en-us/product/qda-sa3

https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php