Do RDMs need MPIO?

Aussie Storage Blog

I got a great question the other day regarding VMware Raw Device Mappings:

If an RDM is a direct pass though of a volume from Storage Device to VM, does the VM need MPIO software like a physical machine does?

The short answer is NO,  it doesn’t.  But I thought I would show why this is so, and in fact why adding MPIO software may help.

First up, to test this, I created two volumes on my Storwize V3700.

I mapped them to an ESXi server as LUN ID 2 and LUN ID 3.  Note the serials of the volumes end in 0040 and 0041:

On ESX I did a Rescan All and discovered two new volumes, which we know match the two I just made on my V3700, as the serial numbers end in 40 and 41 and the LUN IDs are 2 and 3:

I confirmed that the…

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