Hello - I have two ESXi hosts runninng v5.1 and each have one dual-port SAS card installed which are connected to Dell MD1220 external arrays. Below is the configuration of each.
ESXi Host #1 (SAS Port 1) --> MD1220_1 --> MD1220_2
ESXi Host #1 (SAS Port 2) --> MD1220_3 --> MD1220_4
ESXi Host #2 (SAS Port 1) --> MD1220_3 --> MD1220_4
ESXi Host #2 (SAS Port 2) --> MD1220_1 --> MD1220_2
MD1220_1 and MD1220_2 are daisychained together via SAS cables. Same with MD1220_3 and MD1220_4.
I'm trying to configure the arrays so they're all accessible by both hosts to be used as shared storage like a SAN. I know this isn't the ideal way to do this but this is for our test environment and these two hosts and four arrays are basically all we have. I'm running into issues with adding the datastores to both hosts so both see them and can use them. It seems like if I add one of the VD's/datastores on the arrays it can be used by one host but not the other. Both hosts can see all the VDs/datastores, but when I go to add a datastore that is already mounted to the other host, it just doesn't show up in the available datastores.
Hopefully this isn't too confusing. Is this configuration even doable with the hardware with which I'm working??