Intel H97 motherboard can find SATA hard drive under VMware vSphere ESXi 6

I am building an new EXSi server at home by using Asus H97I-Pulus ITX motherboard.

I loaded the ESXi 6 on USB and boot from it, then choice install into another SanDisk Fit USB drive.

I noticed there is no SATA Hard Drive during the installation.

After reboot login in ESXi client still could not found my 2 STAT hard disk:

1. M.2 Samsung 128 GB SSD


2. SATA WesterDigital Red 2 TB

After ssh login to ESXi host, I did more looking up:

[root@localhost:~] df -h
Filesystem   Size   Used Available Use% Mounted on
vfat       249.7M   8.0K    249.7M   0% /vmfs/volumes/e0d29ee9-64a81569-d3da-f0f	0ee514154
vfat       249.7M 162.0M     87.7M  65% /vmfs/volumes/624445eb-9b9e283b-cc41-f48	3d0112608
vfat       285.8M 201.6M     84.2M  71% /vmfs/volumes/56ddaf15-87a6f9a4-9fb2-782	4af3ca264

Looking up the PCI device:

[root@localhost:~] lspci -v
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge Bridge: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor DRAM Controller
         Class 0600: 8086:0c00

0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge Bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor PCI Express x16 Controller [PCIe RP[0000:00:01.0]]
         Class 0604: 8086:0c01

0000:00:02.0 VGA compatible controller Display controller: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller
         Class 0300: 8086:0402

0000:00:03.0 Audio device Multimedia controller: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio Controller
         Class 0403: 8086:0c0c

0000:00:14.0 USB controller Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation 9 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI Controller
         Class 0c03: 8086:8cb1

0000:00:16.0 Communication controller Communication controller: Intel Corporation 9 Series Chipset Family ME Interface #1
         Class 0780: 8086:8cba

0000:00:19.0 Ethernet controller Network controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection (2) I218-V [vmnic0]
         Class 0200: 8086:15a1

0000:00:1a.0 USB controller Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation 9 Series Chipset Family USB EHCI Controller #2
         Class 0c03: 8086:8cad

0000:00:1b.0 Audio device Multimedia controller: Intel Corporation 9 Series Chipset Family HD Audio Controller
         Class 0403: 8086:8ca0

0000:00:1d.0 USB controller Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation 9 Series Chipset Family USB EHCI Controller #1
         Class 0c03: 8086:8ca6

0000:00:1f.0 ISA bridge Bridge: Intel Corporation 9 Series Chipset Family H97 Controller
         Class 0601: 8086:8cc6

0000:00:1f.2 SATA controller Mass storage controller: Intel Corporation 9 Series Chipset Family SATA Controller [AHCI Mode]
         Class 0106: 8086:8c82

0000:00:1f.3 SMBus Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation 9 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller
         Class 0c05: 8086:8ca2

Specific the SATA Controller:

[root@localhost:~] lspci -v|grep "Class 0106"
         Class 0106: 8086:8c82
[root@localhost:~] lspci -v|grep "Class 0106" -B 1
0000:00:1f.2 SATA controller Mass storage controller: Intel Corporation 9 Series Chipset Family SATA Controller [AHCI Mode]
         Class 0106: 8086:8c82

Install http://vibsdepot.v-front.de sata-xahci vib package:

[root@localhost:~] esxcli software acceptance set --level=CommunitySupported
Host acceptance level changed to 'CommunitySupported'.
[root@localhost:~] esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e true -r httpClient
[root@localhost:~] esxcli software vib install -d http://vibsdepot.v-front.de -n sata-xahci

Please notice this will took several minutes to install.

Installation Result
   Message: The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the changes to be effective.
   Reboot Required: true
   VIBs Installed: VFrontDe_bootbank_sata-xahci_1.34-1
   VIBs Removed:
   VIBs Skipped:

You have to reboot to apply the changes.

After reboot, all the SATA storage device is back, and you can create new Datastores now.

This packages also works on almost all the SATA Controllers ESXi does not support out of box.

Great works from VMware Front Experience!

For references:
https://www.v-front.de/2013/11/how-to-make-your-unsupported-sata-ahci.html
https://vibsdepot.v-front.de/wiki/index.php/Sata-xahci