[Solved] - Drive errors when installing pfSense as a VM under ESXi 6.5

[gordon_cents]

ESXi 6.5 seems to have a issue with the current SATA drivers.  It was taking 15 minutes to install pfSense on a SSD as I was getting timeout errors on the drive.

Using putty I connected to the ESXi server and entered the command -

esxcli system module set –enabled=false --module=vmw_ahci

** Reboot the host to make the change effective. **

Hope this help others setting pfSense in a VM.

Thanks

[KOM]

I've installed pfSense in a VM about 100 times and never had any problems, from ESXi 5 through to 6.5.

SATA drivers??  If you installed pfSense as a FreeBSD x64 VM, it should have configured your disk subsystem as SCSI not SATA.

[gordon_cents]

I'm not referring to the VM but the HOST itself.  In regards to installing the pfSense I followed the How-To document pfSense provides.

Thanks

[gjaltemba]

Disabling the native driver was necessary in older versions but I now have vmw-ahci enabled without problems that you described.

Version 1.0.0-39vmw.650.1.26.5969303

[gordon_cents]

Hi gjaltemba,

Could very well be a version issue.  I D/L'ed the EXSi free version (6.5.0a) last week.  Not sure if one is given access to updated bits when running on the "free" version.

Thanks,

[KOM]

There should be no difference in hardware support, regardless of license level.