BOSS-N1 Monolithic HBA Firmware Incompatibility with ESXi 9.0

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

When utilizing the BOSS-N1 Monolithic HBA with VMware vSphere ESXi 9.0, hosts may experience storage visibility issues. 

• ESXi update pre-checks fail with errors such as: "Cannot obtain symlink information."
• partedUtil operations (e.g., getptbl) fail to return valid partition information.
• Local datastores are inaccessible or reported as missing.
• Storage device size is visible, but the host cannot read the partition table.

 

Environment

vSphere  ESX 9.0

Cause

The issue is caused by a firmware incompatibility between the BOSS-N1 Monolithic HBA and VMware vSphere ESXi 9.0.

Incompatible firmware prevents the host from establishing proper communication with the storage controller, resulting in failed storage operations and 
failures during update pre-checks, inability to retrieve partition information, or missing local datastores.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, verify and update the HBA firmware to a version validated by the hardware vendor and the Broadcom Hardware Compatibility List (HCL).

1. Verify the current HBA driver and firmware version by running the following command on the ESXi host: esxcli storage core adapter list
2. Consult the https://compatibilityguide.broadcom.com/ to confirm the validated firmware version for your specific HBA model and ESXi 9.0.
3. Contact your hardware vendor (e.g., Dell Support) to obtain the appropriate, validated firmware bundle.
4. Apply the firmware update according to the vendor's instructions.
5. After the firmware update, perform a storage rescan to verify that the host can correctly access the partition information: esxcli storage core adapter rescan --all

Additional Information

• If the issue persists after updating the firmware, contact support for further investigation. 
• For general information on managing storage devices, see the vSphere Storage