Support for SATA disks

1 Introduction to SATA
2 Upgrade process
3 Capture VMs with SATA controllers
4 Configure SATA in VM templates
5 SATA in VMs
6 Configure SATA

This document describes how in the Abiquo multi-cloud platform on ESXi hosts, vCenter hosts, and vCenter clusters, you can now use SATA ISOs and SATA hard disks.
Abiquo makes it easy for you to work with ISOs and disks to create VM templates in your multi-cloud template catalogue and self-service VMs

Introduction to SATA

Abiquo 5.1.1 introduces support for SATA (AHCI) controllers. For ESXi hosts, vCenter hosts, and vCenter clusters, you can now use SATA ISOs and SATA hard disks. This feature enables you to hot reconfigure CD devices and hard disks. This feature also introduces some additional functionality in the user interface.

Upgrade process

As part of the upgrade process, optionally configure SATA with Abiquo properties as described in the following section.

After you upgrade Abiquo, the first time it updates the data of managed VMs, the platform will modify SATA controllers that are registered in Abiquo as IDE controllers to change them to SATA controllers.

Capture VMs with SATA controllers

Since vCenter 5.7, when attaching an ISO using the vCenter UI, SATA is the default CD controller. Now when you capture a VM, the platform recognizes SATA controllers and manages them as part of the VM configuration.

Configure SATA in VM templates

You can select the SATA controller for CDs and disks in VM templates.

In the Apps library (template catalog), you can now edit ISO templates in the same way as you can edit VM templates.

When you create a template from an ISO disk file, you can select the SATA Controller type.

When you edit a template and create a disk from an ISO file, you can then edit the Disk and select the SATA Controller type.

To enable or disable hot reconfigure of SATA devices, use the Disks hot reconfigure option on the Advanced tab.

SATA in VMs

SATA enables you to resize hard disks, with the same restrictions as SCSI: thin provisioned disks with no snapshots. See VMware. It also enables you to hot reconfigure disks. And you can add and remove ISO disks with hot-reconfigure.

When you reconfigure a VM to assign a new virtual disk, you can select a SATA controller.

You cannot remove a SATA controller when the VM is powered on, even if you are using hot-reconfigure.

The platform will not automatically remove an unused SATA controller from a VM.

Configure SATA

For technical limitations and SATA configuration options, see Configure SATA for VMware hypervisors