So I have a Dell R710 running the following...

ESXi 6.5

Dual 6 core processors 3.33Ghz

116GB RAM
Broadcom NetXtreme Ethernet Boot Agent

PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller BIOS, PERC H700 Integrated FW=12.0.1-0091

JBOD Setup

8 Bay JBOD connected with eSata to R710
Asmedia 106x SATA Controller Ver 3.30A AHCI Mode

8x HGST HUS724040ALA640 Drives (HGST Ultrastar 7K4000 HUS724040ALA640 (0F14688) 4TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Enterprise Hard Drive Bare Drive)

When I boot the server the BIOS sees the eSATA PCIe card and all 8 4TB drives. If I enter the RAID Utility it does NOT see the drives though it only sees the 8x 300GB 2.5" drives in the front of the unit plugged into the backplane. When I get into VMware ESXi 6.5 I can see the eSata controller but if I go to expand the current datastore it sees no drives. If I go into Host>Manage>Hardware it sees the PCIe eSata Controller and says SR-IOV = Not capable and Passthrough = Disabled.

I tried changing the bios to UEFI and had no change at all.

I then ssh'd into the ESXi server and ran the following which also shows ESXi sees the disks (sort of???)

[root@localhost:~] ls -alh /vmfs/devices/disks

total 11906890493

drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root         512 Sep 24 15:22 .

drwxr-xr-x   13 root     root         512 Sep 24 15:22 ..

-rw-------    1 root     root        1.9T Sep 24 15:22 naa.6a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f

-rw-------    1 root     root        4.0M Sep 24 15:22 naa.6a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f:1

-rw-------    1 root     root        4.0G Sep 24 15:22 naa.6a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f:2

-rw-------    1 root     root        1.9T Sep 24 15:22 naa.6a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f:3

-rw-------    1 root     root      250.0M Sep 24 15:22 naa.6a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f:5

-rw-------    1 root     root      250.0M Sep 24 15:22 naa.6a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f:6

-rw-------    1 root     root      110.0M Sep 24 15:22 naa.6a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f:7

-rw-------    1 root     root      286.0M Sep 24 15:22 naa.6a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f:8

-rw-------    1 root     root        2.5G Sep 24 15:22 naa.6a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f:9

-rw-------    1 root     root        3.6T Sep 24 15:22 t10.ATA_____HGST_HUS724040ALA640__________________________PN1334PCGE4EWS

-rw-------    1 root     root       51.2M Sep 24 15:22 t10.ATA_____HGST_HUS724040ALA640__________________________PN1334PCGE4EWS:1

-rw-------    1 root     root        3.6T Sep 24 15:22 t10.ATA_____HGST_HUS724040ALA640__________________________PN1334PCGE4EWS:2

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root          72 Sep 24 15:22 vml.0100000000202020202020504e313333345043474534455753484753542048 -> t10.ATA_____HGST_HUS724040ALA640__________________________PN1334PCGE4EWS

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root          74 Sep 24 15:22 vml.0100000000202020202020504e313333345043474534455753484753542048:1 -> t10.ATA_____HGST_HUS724040ALA640__________________________PN1334PCGE4EWS:1

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root          74 Sep 24 15:22 vml.0100000000202020202020504e313333345043474534455753484753542048:2 -> t10.ATA_____HGST_HUS724040ALA640__________________________PN1334PCGE4EWS:2

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root          36 Sep 24 15:22 vml.02000000006a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f504552432048 -> naa.6a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root          38 Sep 24 15:22 vml.02000000006a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f504552432048:1 -> naa.6a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f:1

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root          38 Sep 24 15:22 vml.02000000006a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f504552432048:2 -> naa.6a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f:2

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root          38 Sep 24 15:22 vml.02000000006a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f504552432048:3 -> naa.6a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f:3

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root          38 Sep 24 15:22 vml.02000000006a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f504552432048:5 -> naa.6a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f:5

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root          38 Sep 24 15:22 vml.02000000006a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f504552432048:6 -> naa.6a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f:6

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root          38 Sep 24 15:22 vml.02000000006a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f504552432048:7 -> naa.6a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f:7

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root          38 Sep 24 15:22 vml.02000000006a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f504552432048:8 -> naa.6a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f:8

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root          38 Sep 24 15:22 vml.02000000006a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f504552432048:9 -> naa.6a4badb02839e100215990ad090cc94f:9

At my wits end here with this thing any advice would be appreciated.