Summary
The BEX/NSB virtualization of 4K sector disks fails on VMware ESX servers, version 3.5. To resolve this issue, refer to the KB on the VMware website.
Symptoms
The BEX/NSB virtualization of 4K sector disks fails on VMware ESX servers, version 3.5.
Resolution
This issue is a limitation of VMware ESX servers version 3.5, as described on the VMware website.
To resolve this issue, refer to the following KB for more detail:
kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=3371739
ESX/ESXi 3.x/4.x hosts supports a maximum sector size of 512 bytes, which translates to a maximum 2 TB LUNs.
The size limit of 2 TB translates to a maximum of 4294967295 sectors or 2199023254528 bytes with a sector size of 512 bytes, the only one supported by the current releases of ESX. VMware works with the SCSI-2 standard and only uses the 10 byte commands to report the capacity. This is an industry standard.