Mark or Emulate an HDD as SSD / Flash Disk in ESXi 5.x & 6.X

For vSphere 5.X   device we have to perform steps from CLI  to change the device type from HDD to SSD . From vSphere 6 onwards there is nice feature which allows you to tag (mark) a devise as Flash device from vSphere web client .In this post we are sharing how can we perform this  ,

Change device type on vSphere 5.X 

First identify the storage device in which you need to mark as an SSD  ,follow the below command to check the device information

esxcli storage core device list  

You can find the SSD status as shown in above image device mpx.vmhba0.C0:T1:L0 shows “Is SSD” parameter as false.

Also you can find the device information from vSphere Client

Navigate to vSphere Web Client and  Esxi host > Manage > Storage Devices and select the device

Next we can change the mpx.vmhba0.C0:T1:L0 device to SDD  by applying below commands 

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esxcli storage nmp satp rule add -s VMW_SATP_LOCAL -d mpx.vmhba0:C0:T0:L0 -o enable_ssd

esxcli storage core claiming reclaim -d mpx.vmhba0:C0:T0:L0

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Now verify that device type status by running the “esxcli storage core device list”  command again and you can find the SSD status of device mpx.vmhba0.C0:T1:L0 shows “Is SSD” parameter as true  , find the below image .

Same can be verify from vSphere Web client also .

If you want to change the device back  to type “DISK”, you can do that by removing the rule we created . Follwo the below steps do the same  .

First remove the SATP rule and that we created for changing the device type to SSD.

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esxcli storage nmp satp rule remove -s VMW_SATP_LOCAL -d mpx.vmhba0:C0:T1:L0
esxcli storage core claiming reclaim -d mpx.vmhba0:C0:T1:L0

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Change the device type on vSphere 6.X

Login to vSphere Web Client and Navigate to Host and Cluster

Select the Esxi host > Manage > Storage Devices and select the device which you want to tag as SSD and click on ” F “ button to mark that device as Flash Disk.

You have to confirm by clicking “YES” to proceed  change from HDD to Flash

In few seconds you can see changes is effective

If you have to revert back to old state  , click on ” HDD “ button to mark that device as HDD.