How to change default path selection policy for particular storage array?

Sometimes the firmware in storage array has some problems and you have to "downgrade" functionality to achieve operable system. That's sometimes happen for some ALUA storage systems where Round Robin path policy or Fixed path policy (aka FIXED) should work but doesn't because of firmware issue.

So relatively simple solution is to switch back from more advanced round robin policy to legacy - but properly functioning -  Most Recently Used path policy (aka MRU) normally used for active/passive storage systems. 

Note: Please be aware that some storage vendors saying they have active/active storage even they have not. Usually and probably more precisely they call it "dual-active storage" which is not same as active/active. Maybe I should write another post about this topic.

You can change Path Selection Policy by several ways and as always the best option depends on your specific requirements and constrains.

However, if you have only one  instance of some storage type connected to your ESX hosts you can simply change default path selection policy for this particular SATP type. Let's assume you have some LSI storage.

Below is simple esxcli command how to do it ...

esxcli storage nmp satp set --default-psp=VMW_PSP_MRU --satp=VMW_SATP_LSI

... and then your default PSP for VMW_SATP_LSI is now VMW_PSP_MRU

One thing you must be aware … if you in the past explicitly changed any devices (disks) to another path selection policy then default PSP will not change even you have another default path policy. There is not esxcli mechanism how to change devices back to accept  default PSP for particular SATP type. Only solution is to edit /etc/vmware/esx.conf

All previous explicit changes are written in /etc/vmware/esx.conf  so it is pretty simple to find it and remove these lines form config file.  I silently assume you do such operations in maintenance mode so after ESX reboot all your paths for your devices will follow default SATP path selection policy. 

BTW: That’s why I generally don’t recommend to change PSP for particular device when not necessary. Sometimes it is necessary for example for RDM’s participating in MSCS cluster. But usually it is abused by admins and implementation engineers.  I strongly believe it is always better to set default PSP to behave as required.