SSD failure alert in vCenter

If a SSD starts to fail, it first starts to slow down , especially for writes, then it becomes read only , and at that point VirtuCache is not able to write to the SSD so VMs and Datastores move to uncached mode automatically. Your VMs go back to performing as they performed before VirtuCache. Other than that, VirtuCache moving to uncached mode is not disruptive to your VMware infrastructure.

Since VMware vSphere (and not VirtuCache) manages the SSD device, vSphere should ideally mark the SSD as failed when the SSD becomes read only, however it doesn’t do this in a timely manner and so the Administrator doesn’t realize that the SSD has failed till much later. To workaround this issue, when you install VirtuCache, VirtuCache automatically inserts an alert for ‘SSD Failed’ event in vCenter. This is a vCenter alert that forewarns the VMware administrator of SSD failure prior to the SSD becoming read-only.

Once you see this alert in vCenter, please replace the SSD in the ESXi host.

Please see the below screenshot from vcenter for the ‘VirtuCache: SSD Failed Alarm’ in vCenter.