Bug 187281

Summary: SCSI SSD device is rotational under VMware Workstation 12.5.1
Product: Virtualization Reporter: Tom Hale (tom)
Component: lguestAssignee: virtualization_lguest
Status: NEW ---    
Severity: normal CC: tom
Priority: P1    
Hardware: Intel   
OS: Linux   
Kernel Version: 4.4.19-1-MANJARO and 3.16.0-38-generic Subsystem:
Regression: No Bisected commit-id:

Description Tom Hale 2016-11-08 11:02:23 UTC
I'm running VMware Workstation 12.5.1, and have set SCSI0:0 as an SSD drive by adding the following to my .vmx file:
    scsi0:0.virtualSSD = 1

/sys/block/sda/queue/rotational still contains "1" whereas I would expect it to contain 0.

However running:
    smartctl -a /dev/sda
I get the output I expect:

============================================================================
smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [x86_64-linux-3.16.0-38-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
 
 
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Vendor:               VMware,
Product:              VMware Virtual S
Revision:             1.0
User Capacity:        274,877,906,944 bytes [274 GB]
Logical block size:   512 bytes
Rotation Rate:        Solid State Device
Device type:          disk
Local Time is:        Tue Oct 25 08:35:07 2016 ICT
SMART support is:     Unavailable - device lacks SMART capability.
 
 
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
 
 
Error Counter logging not supported
 
 
Device does not support Self Test logging
============================================================================ 


Some dmesg output:

============================================================================
[manjaro@manjaro tmp]$ dmesg | grep -ie scsi -e sda
[    4.490157] Block layer SCSI generic (bsg) driver version 0.4 loaded (major 250)
[    4.763300] SCSI subsystem initialized
[    4.991978] scsi host0: ioc0: LSI53C1030 B0, FwRev=01032920h, Ports=1, MaxQ=128, IRQ=17
[    5.084180] scsi host1: ata_piix
[    5.085081] scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access     VMware,  VMware Virtual S 1.0  PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
[    5.085090] scsi target0:0:0: Beginning Domain Validation
[    5.086814] scsi target0:0:0: Domain Validation skipping write tests
[    5.086817] scsi target0:0:0: Ending Domain Validation
[    5.086892] scsi target0:0:0: FAST-40 WIDE SCSI 80.0 MB/s ST (25 ns, offset 127)
[    5.088013] scsi host2: ata_piix
[    5.397024] scsi 2:0:0:0: CD-ROM            NECVMWar VMware IDE CDR10 1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[    5.403576] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 536870912 512-byte logical blocks: (275 GB/256 GiB)
[    5.403627] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[    5.403632] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 61 00 00 00
[    5.403708] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Cache data unavailable
[    5.403711] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
[    5.405064] sr 2:0:0:0: [sr0] scsi3-mmc drive: 1x/1x writer dvd-ram cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
[    5.405346] sr 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0
[    5.407349] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
[   15.276077] sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
[   15.276166] sr 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 5
[38725.554302]  sda: sda1 sda2 sda3
[41306.674972]  sda: sda1 sda2 sda3
[41413.106577]  sda: sda1 sda2 sda3
[41414.101146]  sda: sda1 sda2 sda3
[41505.132751]  sda: sda1 sda2 sda3
[46753.312102]  sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4
[46754.313643]  sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4
[69218.476786]  sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4
[75137.997042]  sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4
[76189.464141]  sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4
[83174.415633]  psmouse serio_raw soundcore battery nfit parport_pc parport vmwgfx ttm acpi_cpufreq tpm_tis tpm drm_kms_helper drm evdev processor ac syscopyarea sysfillrect sysimgblt fb_sys_fops vmw_vmci i2c_piix4 shpchp mac_hid sch_fq_codel ip_tables x_tables overlay squashfs isofs loop hid_generic usbhid hid sr_mod cdrom sd_mod ata_generic pata_acpi uhci_hcd atkbd libps2 crc32c_intel ata_piix ehci_pci ehci_hcd mptspi scsi_transport_spi libata usbcore mptscsih e1000 usb_common mptbase scsi_mod intel_agp intel_gtt i8042 serio fjes button
[83834.506828]  psmouse serio_raw soundcore battery nfit parport_pc parport vmwgfx ttm acpi_cpufreq tpm_tis tpm drm_kms_helper drm evdev processor ac syscopyarea sysfillrect sysimgblt fb_sys_fops vmw_vmci i2c_piix4 shpchp mac_hid sch_fq_codel ip_tables x_tables overlay squashfs isofs loop hid_generic usbhid hid sr_mod cdrom sd_mod ata_generic pata_acpi uhci_hcd atkbd libps2 crc32c_intel ata_piix ehci_pci ehci_hcd mptspi scsi_transport_spi libata usbcore mptscsih e1000 usb_common mptbase scsi_mod intel_agp intel_gtt i8042 serio fjes button
[manjaro@manjaro tmp]$ 

============================================================================


Also raised (with no response) at:
https://communities.vmware.com/message/2628725#2628725
http://superuser.com/questions/1139128/emulate-ssd-drive-in-vmware-workstation-12
https://forum.manjaro.org/t/ssd-detected-by-smartctl-but-queue-rotational-1/11507