"Unable to remove device: Failed to get storagepool disks with exception: Failed to open device" when trying to remove a failed disk

Products

• VMware vSAN

Issue/Introduction

When attempting to remove a failed disk via vCenter > vSAN Cluster > Configure > vSAN > Disk Management the below error is received:

Unable to remove device: Failed to get storagepool disks with exception: Failed to open device

Same error is received when trying to remove the disk from ESXi CLI as well:

[root@esxi013:~] esxcli vsan storagepool remove -u 525b9f82-6f7a-a899-f96e-###########
Unable to remove device: Failed to get storagepool disks with exception: Failed to open device

Environment

VMware vSAN ESA (All Versions)

Cause

This issue occurs when vSAN can't communicate with the physical disk due to metadata corruption, stuck I/O errors, hardware-level unresponsiveness, or the physical disk has already been removed from the server.

When the storage controller or NVMe drive cannot complete I/O requests due to underlying physical hardware degradation, media errors, or no longer physically present, the vSAN management stack fails to update partition or metadata maps.

Resolution

Perform the following steps to remove the disk:

1. Place the host into maintenance mode with Ensure Accessibility
2. Reboot the host
3. If the failed disk no longer shows up in Disk Management proceed with adding the new disk to the host 
4. If the disk is still present try removing the disk again first via vCenter UI 
5. If vCenter UI fails to remove the disk try from ESXi CLI esxcli vsan storagepool remove -u <disk_uuid>
6. Replace the failed disk and add it to the storage pool
7. Exit the host from maintenance mode
8. If the disk still fails to remove open a case with vSAN support for further assistance