XP 1024 support ESX 3.5 or ESX 4 (vSphere)?

[Chris House]

I noticed on SPOCK that VMware ESX 3.5 and higher (including vSphere 4) is not supported on the XP 1024 disk array: http://h20272.www2.hp.com/Content/Default.aspx?LinId=HP%20StorageWorks%20XP1024%20Disk%20Array:102&CompPath=Operating%20System/VMware

Does anybody know why exactly? I have been running ESX 3.5 on 45+ c-class blades using XP 1024 LDEVs just fine for awhile but when I started upgrading a few of them to ESX 4, they only appear to see 1 path to the array versus the 4 that they should see (that the 3.5 hosts see).

The XP 10k/12k and XP 20k/24k are specifically supported for vSphere: http://h20272.www2.hp.com/Content/ComponentDetail.aspx?CompId=4381#

I guess I will just have to wait for my replacement 20k's to come online before upgrading to ESX 4 unless anybody has any clues on these missing paths. No zoning or lun masking has been changed. Hosts still see all 8 paths to EVA8000 storage.

[Peter Mattei]

VMware 3.5 and newer requires SCSI3 command set being support by the array, which the XP1024 does not do.

Since the XP1024 went end of sale back in October 2005 long before VMware 3.5 appeared SCSI3 support has not been retrfitted.

Cheers
XP-Pete