Dell and UCPE-900 manual

Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) 9 User’s Guide Regulatory Model: UCPA-901, UCPB-900, UCSA-901, UCSB-900, UCSE-900, and UCPE-900[...]

Notes, cautions, and warnings NOTE: A NOTE indicates important information that helps you make better use of your computer. CAUTION: A CAUTION indicates either potential damage to hardware or loss of data and tells you how to avoid the problem. WARNING: A WARNING indicates a potential for property damage, personal injury, or death. Copyright © 201[...]

Contents 1 Overview................................................................................................................. 9 Supported operating systems ............................................................................................................. 14 PERC card specifications .................................................[...]

Conditions under which write-back is employed ........................................................................ 31 Conditions under which forced write-back with no battery is employed .................................. 31 Virtual disk read cache policies ........................................................................................[...]

6 BIOS Configuration Utility................................................................................ 62 Entering the BIOS Configuration Utility ............................................................................................. 62 Exiting the Configuration Utility ...................................................................[...]

Enabling auto import .....................................................................................................................83 Disabling auto import ....................................................................................................................83 Restoring factory default settings .................................[...]

Importing or clearing secured foreign configurations and secure disk migration .................... 96 Instant secure erase ...................................................................................................................... 97 9 Troubleshooting.......................................................................................[...]

Rebuilding a failed physical disk ................................................................................................. 107 Virtual disk fails during rebuild using a global hot spare ............................................................107 Virtual disk fails during rebuild using a dedicated hot spare .............................[...]

1 Overview The Dell PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller (PERC) 9 Series of cards consist of the H330, H730, H730P, and H830 cards. • PERC H330: The PERC H330 is a general purpose RAID solution card. The card is available in Adapter (low profile and full height), Mini Monolithic, and Mini Blade form factors for internal storage and tape devices. [...]

Figure 2. Features of PERC H330 mini monolithic card 1. heat sink 2. PERC H330 mini monolithic card • PERC H730: The PERC H730 is a RAID solution card consisting of a minimum of 1 GB Non-Volatile Cache and is available in the Adapter (low profile and full height), Mini Monolithic, and Mini Blade form factors for internal storage. 10[...]

Figure 3. Features of PERC H730 card 1. PERC H730 card 2. heat sink 3. battery cable 4. battery carrier 5. SAS cable connectors 11[...]

Figure 4. Features of PERC H730/H730P mini monolithic card 1. PERC H730/H730P card 2. heat sink 3. battery cable 4. battery carrier • PERC H730P: The PERC H730P is the performance RAID solution card consisting of 2 GB Non- Volatile Cache and is available in the Adapter (low profile and full height), Slim, and Mini Monolithic form factors for inte[...]

Figure 5. Features of PERC H730P adapter card 1. PERC H730P card 2. heat sink 3. battery cable 4. battery carrier 5. SAS cable connectors • PERC H830: The PERC H830 is similar to the H730P solution, except that it supports external storage. The PERC H830 is only available in the Adapter (low profile and full height) form factor. 13[...]

Figure 6. Features of PERC H830 adapter card 1. external SAS cable connectors 2. PERC H830 adapter 3. heat sink 4. battery cable 5. battery carrier Supported operating systems The PERC 9 series cards support the following operating systems: • Microsoft Windows Server 2012 • Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 ?[...]

• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server version 11 SP3 (64-bit) • Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 7 NOTE: For the latest list of supported operating systems and driver installation instructions, see the system documentation at dell.com/support/manuals . For specific operating system service pack requirements, see the Drivers and Downloads section at de[...]

Feature PERC H330 PERC H730 PERC H730P PERC H830 PERC FD33xD/ FD33xS NOTE: H330 does not support caching, which affects performan ce in RAID 5 and RAID 50 arrays. For performan ce sensitive solutions, caching is recomme nded. Cache function Write Through and No Read Ahead Write Back, Write Through, No Read Ahead, and Read Ahead Write Back, Write Th[...]

Feature PERC H330 PERC H730 PERC H730P PERC H830 PERC FD33xD/ FD33xS PCIe Support Gen 3 Gen 3 Gen 3 Gen 3 Gen 3 Non-RAID or pass through mode Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Management applications for PERC cards Dell OpenManage Storage Management applications enable you to manage and configure the RAID system, create and manage multiple disk groups, control a[...]

NOTE: For more information, see the Dell OpenManage Storage Management User's Guide at dell.com/openmanagemanuals . Related documentation NOTE: • For all storage controllers and PCIe SSD documents, go to dell.com/storagecontrollermanuals . • For all Dell OpenManage documents, go to dell.com/openmanagemanuals . • For all operating system [...]

2 Getting started with your PERC card The workflows outlined below list the procedures to getting started with the PERC card, based on your system configuration: • Installing the operating system and the PERC card on a base system • Installing the PERC card on a system with the operating system pre-installed • Installing the operating system [...]

5. Performing Background Initialization 6. Creating Secured Virtual Disks 7. Securing Pre-Existing Virtual Disks e. Managing controllers through BIOS 1. Enabling Boot Support 2. Enabling Boot Support For A BIOS-Enabled Controller 3. Enabling BIOS Stop On Error 4. Enabling Auto Import 4. Install the operating system. For more information, refer to y[...]

c. Creating virtual disks • Setting up virtual disks d. Managing virtual disks 1. Setting up virtual disks 2. Checking Data Consistency 3. Managing Preserved Cache 4. Initializing virtual disks 5. Performing Background Initialization 6. Creating Secured Virtual Disks 7. Securing Pre-Existing Virtual Disks e. Managing Controllers through BIOS 1. E[...]

4. Initializing virtual disks 5. Performing Background Initialization 6. Creating Secured Virtual Disks 7. Securing Pre-Existing Virtual Disks e. Managing Controllers through BIOS 1. Enabling Boot Support 2. Enabling Boot Support For A BIOS-Enabled Controller 3. Enabling BIOS Stop On Error 4. Enabling Auto Import 2. Install the operating system. Fo[...]

4. Initializing virtual disks 5. Performing Background Initialization 6. Creating Secured Virtual Disks 7. Securing Pre-Existing Virtual Disks e. Managing Controllers through BIOS 1. Enabling Boot Support 2. Enabling Boot Support For A BIOS-Enabled Controller 3. Enabling BIOS Stop On Error 4. Enabling Auto Import 2. Additionally, you can install an[...]

7. Securing Pre-Existing Virtual Disks e. Managing Controllers through BIOS 1. Enabling Boot Support 2. Enabling Boot Support For A BIOS-Enabled Controller 3. Enabling BIOS Stop On Error 4. Enabling Auto Import 4. Additionally, you can install and use OpenManage Storage Services to manage the PERC card(s). 24[...]

3 Features PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) 9 series cards support the following features: • Personality mode management • T10 Protection Information (PI) • secure firmware update • improved RAID 10 configuration • 4KB block size disk drives PERC 9 personality management PERC 9 series of cards support two personality modes. • RAID mode:[...]

The Virtual Disk Management screen is displayed in the BIOS Configuration Utility window. If there is more than one controller, the main menu screen is displayed. Select a controller, and press <Enter>. The Virtual Disk Management screen is displayed for the selected controller. 2. Use the arrow keys to highlight the PERC 9 series of cards or[...]

There are four power-saving modes: No Power Savings ( default mode ) All power savings features are disabled. Balanced Power Savings Spin down is enabled only for unconfigured and hot spare disks. Maximum Power Savings Spin down is enabled for configured, unconfigured, and hot spare disks. NOTE: The maximum power savings mode is not supported by th[...]

NOTE: For better performance, you can perform full initialization on virtual disks. Full initialization does not support RAID 6 and RAID 60 virtual disks with the PI feature enabled. BGI runs instead. NOTE: If the system reboots during a full initialization, the operation aborts and a BGI begins on the virtual disk. Fast initialization A fast initi[...]

Consistency Check (CC) and BGI both correct parity errors. However, CC reports data inconsistencies through an event notification, but BGI does not. You can start CC manually, but not BGI. Disk roaming Disk roaming is moving the physical disks from one cable connection or backplane slot to another on the same controller. The controller automaticall[...]

The following table summarizes the FastPath-eligibility of read and write IOs across the supported RAID levels. Table 1. FastPath eligibility across supported RAID levels RAID 0 RAID 1 RAID 5 RAID 6 RAID 10 Read Yes Yes (Optimal and Degraded) Yes (Optimal and Degraded) Yes (Optimal and Degraded) Yes (Optimal) Write Yes No No No No Virtual disk migr[...]

NOTE: For more information on Foreign Configuration View , see Foriegn Configuration View . 5. Exit the BIOS Configuration Utility and reboot the system. Virtual disk write cache policies The write cache policy of a virtual disk determines how the controller handles writes to the virtual disk. The write cache policies are: Write-Back The controller[...]

Reconfiguration of virtual disks An online virtual disk can be reconfigured in ways that expands its capacity and/or change its RAID level. NOTE: Spanned virtual disks such as RAID 10, 50, and 60 cannot be reconfigured. NOTE: Reconfiguring Virtual Disks typically impacts disk performance until the reconfiguration operation is complete. Online Capac[...]

Source RAID Level Target RAID Level Number of Physical Disks (Beginning) Number of Physical Disks (End) Capacity Expansion Possible Description distributed parity data. RAID 0 RAID 6 1 or more 4 or more Yes At least two disks need to be added for dual distributed parity data. RAID 1 RAID 0 2 2 or more Yes Removes redundancy while increasing capacit[...]

Source RAID Level Target RAID Level Number of Physical Disks (Beginning) Number of Physical Disks (End) Capacity Expansion Possible Description RAID 6 RAID 5 4 or more 4 or more Yes Removes one set of parity data and reclaims disk space used for it. RAID 6 RAID 6 4 or more 5 or more Yes Increases capacity by adding disks NOTE: The total number of p[...]

disk. The physical disk with the SMART error is marked as failed only after the successful completion of the Replace Member . This prevents the array from reaching degraded state. If an automatic Replace Member occurs using a source disk that was originally a hot spare (that was used in a rebuild), and a new disk added for the Replace Member operat[...]

becomes a hot spare with the same properties as the one it is replacing. If the replacement disk does not match the disk protocol and technology, it does not become a hot spare. For more information on persistent hot spares, see the Dell OpenManage documentation at dell.com/ support/manuals . Physical disk hot swapping NOTE: To check if the backpla[...]

Recovering cache data If a system power loss or improper system shutdown has occurred: 1. Restore the system power. 2. Boot the system. 3. To enter the BIOS Configuration Utility , select Managed Preserved Cache in the controller menu. For more information, see Entering the BIOS configuration utility . If there are no virtual disks listed, all pres[...]

NOTE: An X is displayed beside the selected physical disk(s). 6. Select OK . 38[...]

4 Deploying the PERC card CAUTION: Many repairs may only be done by a certified service technician. You should only perform troubleshooting and simple repairs as authorized in your product documentation, or as directed by the online or telephone service and support team. Damage due to servicing that is not authorized by Dell is not covered by your [...]

NOTE: It is recommended that you always use a static mat and static strap while working on components in the interior of the system. 2. Open the system. 3. Locate the PERC card on the system board. CAUTION: To prevent damage to the card, you must hold the card by its edges only. 4. Lift the card to remove it from the connector on the system board. [...]

Installing the PERC 9 adapter CAUTION: Many repairs may only be done by a certified service technician. You should only perform troubleshooting and simple repairs as authorized in your product documentation, or as directed by the online or telephone service and support team. Damage due to servicing that is not authorized by Dell is not covered by y[...]

b. Grasp the cable on both sides of the cable connector, and pull the cable up and away from the PERC card. 5. Angle the card so that the other end of the card disengages from the storage-controller card holder on the system board. 6. Replace the storage controller card and connect the cable. For more information on installing the card, see Install[...]

NOTE: It is recommended that you always use a static mat and static strap while working on components in the interior of the system. 2. Open the system. 3. Locate the PERC card on the system board. 4. Remove the PERC card. For more information, see Removing the PERC 9 mini monolithic controller . 5. Disconnect the battery cable from the PERC card. [...]

Figure 10. Removing the battery 1. battery carrier 2. guide on the battery carrier (2) 3. battery 4. battery cable 8. Align the replacement battery with the guides on the battery carrier. 9. Lower the battery into the carrier until the battery clicks into place. 10. Align the tabs on the battery carrier with the slots on the PERC9 mini monolithic c[...]

CAUTION: To prevent damage to the card, you must hold the card by its edges only. 4. Lower the other end of the card into the card holder on the system board. 5. Connect the storage controller cable: a. Grasp the cable on both sides of the cable connector and connect to the PERC card. b. Attach the two screws to secure the cable to the card. 6. Con[...]

Figure 11. Removing and installing a H730P slim card 1. standoff (2) 2. H730P slim card cable connector 3. pull tag 4. H730P slim card 5. H730P slim card release latch 6. lock and unlock icon on the H730P slim card bracket Replacing the battery of a H730P slim card The battery attached to the H730P slim card can be replaced. 1. Turn off the system,[...]

7. Pull the blue tab to an upright position, until the top of the battery is out of the battery holder on the H730P slim card. 8. Disconnect the battery cable from the H730P slim card. 9. Lift the battery out of the battery holder. Figure 12. Removing the battery 1. screw securing the battery to the H730P slim card 2. clamp securing the battery to [...]

Installing a H730P slim card 1. Turn off the system, including any attached peripherals, and disconnect the system from the electrical outlet. NOTE: It is recommended that you always use a static mat and static strap while working on components in the interior of the system. 2. Open the system. 3. Press the release latch on the side of the chassis [...]

Figure 13. Removing and installing the PERC 9 mini blade controller 1. hard-drive/SSD backplane cable connector 2. slot on the PCIe extender/storage controller card 3. tabs on the PCIe extender/storage controller card support bracket 4. standoff (2) Replacing the tethered battery of a PERC 9 mini blade card The tethered battery attached to the PERC[...]

Figure 14. Removing the battery carrier 1. tab on the battery carrier 2. battery carrier of the tethered battery 5. Disconnect the battery cable connector from the connector on the mini blade and lift the battery carrier away from the system. 6. Pull the battery out of the battery carrier. 50[...]

Figure 15. Removing the battery from the battery carrier 1. battery carrier 2. slot on the tethered battery carrier 3. tethered battery cable 4. battery 5. guide for the battery on the battery carrier 7. Align the lower end of the replacement battery into the battery carrier and push the battery towards the carrier until it clicks into place. 51[...]

Figure 16. Installing the battery into the battery carrier 1. battery carrier 2. slot for the tethered battery carrier 3. tethered battery cable 4. battery 5. guide for the battery on the battery carrier 8. Align the battery carrier with the guide pin slots on the chassis and lower the battery carrier until the guide pin slots on the battery carrie[...]

Figure 17. Replacing the battery carrier 1. battery carrier 2. tab on the battery carrier 3. guide slot on the chassis 4. guide pins on the chassis 9. Connect the battery cable to PERC 9 mini blade controller. 10. Close the system. 11. Reconnect the system to its electrical outlet and turn on the system, including any attached peripherals. Installi[...]

CAUTION: To prevent damage to the card, you must hold the card by its edges only. 5. Align the following: a. screw holes on the PERC 9 mini blade controller with the standoffs on the system board connector. b. slots on the PERC 9 mini blade controller edge with the tabs on the support bracket. 6. Lower the PERC 9 mini blade controller onto the conn[...]

Figure 18. Removing and installing the PERC FD33xD card 1. PERC FD33xD card 2. screw (3) 3. touch point on the cable 4. cable screw (2) 5. touch point on the PERC card (4) 6. connector on midplane interface module 9. Close the system. 10. Reconnect the system to its electrical outlet and turn on the system, including any attached peripherals. Repla[...]

6. Slide the battery carrier in the direction of the arrow printed on the battery carrier, and then flip the battery carrier open. 7. Remove the battery from the PERC card. Figure 19. Removing the battery 1. PECR FD33xD card 2. battery carrier 3. battery cable 4. battery 8. Install the replacement battery on the controller. 9. Push the battery carr[...]

NOTE: It is recommended that you always use a static mat and static strap while working on components in the interior of the system. 2. Open the system. 3. Align the PERC card with the connector on the midplane interface module. 4. Lower the PERC card until it is firmly seated on the connector on the midplane interface module. 5. Install the screws[...]

5 Driver installation The Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) 9 series of cards require software drivers to operate with the supported operating systems. This chapter contains the procedures for installing the drivers for the PERC 9 cards. NOTE: The drivers for PERC 9 for VMware ESXi is packaged within the VMware ESXi ISO image downloaded from De[...]

Downloading drivers from the Dell systems service and diagnostic tools media To download drivers from the Dell Systems Service and Diagnostic Tools media: 1. Insert the Dell Systems Service and Diagnostics Tools media in your system. The Welcome to Dell Service and Diagnostic Utilities screen is displayed. 2. Select your system model and operating [...]

4. Click Next . 5. On the Locate device driver screen, select Search for a suitable driver for my device and click Next . 6. Browse and select the drivers from the Locate Driver Files screen. 7. Click Next . The wizard detects and installs the appropriate device drivers for the new RAID controller. 8. Click Finish to complete the installation. 9. R[...]

NOTE: The driver update disk (DUD) images are created only for those operating system releases in which the native (in-box) driver is insufficient for installation. In the event that an operating system is being installed with a corresponding DUD image, follow the instructions below. Installing or updating the RPM driver package with KMOD support N[...]

6 BIOS Configuration Utility The BIOS Configuration Utility , (<Ctrl> <R>), is a storage management application embedded on the PERC 9 cards that configure and maintain RAID disk groups and virtual disks. <Ctrl> <R> is independent of the operating system. NOTE: Use the BIOS Configuration Utility (<Ctrl> <R>) for [...]

3. Press <Esc> again to reach the exit screen. A dialog box is displayed to confirm your choice. 4. Select OK to exit and press <Enter>. Menu navigation controls The following table displays the menu keys you can use to move between the different screens in the BIOS Configuration Utility (<Ctrl> <R>). Table 3. Menu navigatio[...]

Notation Meaning and Use Example to press <Esc> to exit the BIOS Configuration Utility (<Ctrl> <R>). <Tab> Press <Tab> to move the cursor to the next control on a dialog box or page. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to the next parameter you want to change. <Shift> <Tab> Press <Shift> <Tab> [...]

• Stripe element size • Read policy • Write policy • Type of initialization • Hot spare configuration NOTE: The default hard drive cache policy for a virtual disk with SAS hard drives is disabled and virtual disk with SATA hard drives is enabled. The Virtual Disk parameter cannot be changed in the BIOS Configuration Utility (<Ctrl> [...]

Parameter Description No-Read-Ahead specifies that the controller does not use read ahead for the current virtual disk. BIOS Configuration Utility menu options The first menu that is displayed when you access the BIOS Configuration Utility <Ctrl> <R> is the main menu screen. It lists the controller, controller number, and other informat[...]

Menu Item Selected in Left Panel Information Displayed in Right Panel • Number of physical disks (PD) Disk Group # Disk Group # Properties: • Number of virtual disks (VD) • Number of physical disks (PD) • Space available on the physical disks • Number of free segments • Number of dedicated hot spares • Security property of the Disk Gr[...]

Menu Item Selected in Left Panel Information Displayed in Right Panel • Space available on the physical disks • Number of free segments • Number of dedicated hot spares Total Free Capacity Disk Group # Properties: • Number of virtual disks (VD) • Number of physical disks (PD) • Space available on the physical disks • Number of free se[...]

Action Description Manage preserved cache Preserves the dirty cache from a virtual disk if it goes offline or is deleted. The dirty cache is preserved until you import the virtual disk or discard the cache. Delete a virtual disk Deletes the virtual disk and frees up disk space to create another virtual disk. Delete a disk group Deletes a disk group[...]

Table 8. Physical disk actions Action Description Rebuild Regenerates all data to a replacement disk in a redundant virtual disk (RAID level 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, or 60) after a disk failure. A disk rebuild normally occurs without interrupting normal operations on the affected virtual disk. Replace Member Replaces the disk in the virtual disk with anoth[...]

screen to perform actions on the controller and BIOS. You can perform functions such as enable or disable the controller BIOS, enable or disable the BIOS during bootup in the event of BIOS errors, and enable or disable the option to Auto Import . In addition, you can select a virtual disk from which to boot, and select default settings. Controller [...]

Foreign configuration view When a foreign configuration is present, you can select Foreign Configuration View to display the configuration. The screen shows the foreign configuration as it would be if you import it. You can preview the foreign configuration before you decide whether to import it or clear it. In some cases, a foreign configuration c[...]

The virtual disk size is displayed in GB format. 13. Press <Tab> to access the VD Name field, and type a virtual disk name. 14. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to Advanced settings 15. Press the spacebar to make the settings active so that you can change them. An X is displayed beside Advanced settings. The settings are the stripe size ,[...]

Perform the following steps to initialize virtual disks: 1. On the VD Mgmt screen , select Virtual Disk # and press <F2> to display the menu of available actions. 2. Select Initialization and press the right-arrow key to display the Initialization submenu options. 3. Select Start Init. to begin a regular initialization or select Fast Init. to[...]

The VD Mgmt screen is displayed by default. 2. On the VD Mgmt screen, highlight the Controller # . 3. Press <F2> to display the available actions. 4. Navigate to the Foreign Config option and press the right arrow key to display the available actions: a. Import b. Clear NOTE: Ensure that your virtual disk has all the physical disks by verifyi[...]

a. Select Foreign Config to display the foreign configuration information on the Foreign Config screen. b. Press <F2> to display the options ( Import , Clear ). NOTE: You must have all the disks in the system before you perform the import operation. c. Select Import to import the foreign configuration to the controller or select Clear to dele[...]

NOTE: The Break Mirror operation is not available within the booted operating system environment. It is only available in the BIOS Configuration Utility (<Ctrl> <R>) utility and the UEFI RAID configuration utility. Break mirror in BIOS configuration utility The RAID 1 virtual disk that you wish to split must be in an optimal state, and [...]

A message is displayed advising you to import the foreign configuration before you discard the preserved cache to avoid losing data belonging to the foreign configuration. Confirm whether you want to continue. The Manage Preserved Cache screen displays the affected virtual disks. 4. You can choose to discard the cache on the Manage Preserved Cache [...]

Perform the following steps in the BIOS Configuration Utility (<Ctrl> <R>) to delete the virtual disks: 1. Press <Ctrl> <N> to access the VD Mgmt screen. 2. Use the arrow keys to move the cursor to Virtual Disks . 3. Press <F2>. The action menu is displayed. 4. Select Delete VD and press <Enter>. 5. If there are [...]

A list of physical disks is displayed. The status of the each disk is displayed under the heading State . 2. Press the down-arrow key to highlight a physical disk. 3. Press <F2> to display the menu of available actions. 4. Press the down-arrow key to highlight LED Blinking . 5. Press the right-arrow key to display the available actions, Start[...]

3. Press the down-arrow key and highlight the desired physical disk you want to replace. Press <F2> to expand the list of allowed operations on the disk. 4. Select Replace . 5. Select Start . 6. Press the down-arrow to highlight a replacement disk and then press the spacebar to select the disk. 7. Select OK to start the replacement. NOTE: The[...]

A list of physical disks is displayed. The status of each disk is displayed under the heading State . 2. Press the down-arrow key to highlight a physical disk that is in failed state. 3. Press <F2> to display a menu of available actions. The Rebuild option is highlighted at the top of the menu. 4. Press the right-arrow key to display the rebu[...]

Enabling BIOS stop on error BIOS stop on error is used to stop the system from booting if there are BIOS errors. Perform the following steps to Enable BIOS Stop on Error . 1. Press <Ctrl> <N> to access the Ctrl Mgmt menu screen. 2. Press <Tab> to move the cursor to Enable BIOS Stop on Error in the Settings box. 3. Press the spaceb[...]

Restoring factory default settings You can use the Ctrl Mgmt menu screen to restore the default settings for the options in the Settings box. The settings are Enable Controller BIOS , Enable BIOS Stop on Error , and Enable Auto Import . Perform the following steps to restore default settings: 1. Press <Ctrl> <N> to access the Ctrl Mgmt [...]

7 UEFI/HII RAID configuration utility The UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) RAID configuration utility is a storage management application integrated into the System BIOS <F2>. It is used to configure and manage RAID disk groups, virtual disks, and physical disks. This utility is independent of the operating system. NOTE: The follo[...]

The Device Settings screen displays a list of NIC ports and the Dell PERC 9 configuration utility. 2. To enter PERC 9 configuration utility, click Dell PERC 9 Configuration Utility . Displays the list of Configuration Options : • Controller Management — allows you to configure, manage, and view the controller properties. • Virtual Disk Manage[...]

• Full: The entire virtual disk is initialized. 16. Click Create Virtual Disk and the virtual disks are created with the specified parameters. Creating profile based virtual disks 1. Enter the Dell PERC 9 Configuration Utility . See Navigating to PERC 9 Configuration Utility . 2. Click Configuration Management → Create Profile Based Virtual Dis[...]

3. You can view the following properties of the disk group: Option Description Capacity Allocation Displays the associated virtual disks for the disk group and the available free capacity, if any. Secured Indicates if the disk group is secured. Protected Indicated if the disk group is protected. NOTE: You can select the disk group for protection on[...]

6. Click Save Events . A screen is displayed asking if you are sure you want to perform the operation. 7. Click Yes to continue. Enabling security for the controller 1. Enter the Dell PERC 9 Configuration Utility . See Navigating to PERC 9 Configuration Utility . 2. Click Controller Management → Enable Security . 3. Select the security mode from [...]

Switching the controller to RAID mode 1. Enter the Dell PERC 9 Configuration Utility . See Navigating to PERC 9 Configuration Utility . 2. Click Controller Management → Switch to RAID mode . The controller is switched to the RAID mode. You must reboot the system for the change to be effected. NOTE: All physical disks retain their non-RAID status [...]

Physical disk management Viewing physical disk properties 1. Enter the Dell PERC 9 Configuration Utility . See Navigating to PERC 9 Configuration Utility . 2. Click Physical Disk Management . All the physical disks associated with the RAID controller are displayed. 3. To view the properties, click on the physical disk. You can view the following pr[...]

The additional advanced properties of the physical battery are displayed. Viewing physical disks associated with an enclosure 1. Enter the Dell PERC 9 Configuration Utility . See Navigating to PERC 9 Configuration Utility . 2. Click Hardware Components → Advanced Hardware Components → Enclosure Management . 3. Click the Attached Physical Disks [...]

8 Security key and RAID management NOTE: The H330 PERC card does not support security key and RAID management features. Security key implementation The Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) 9 series of cards support Self-Encrypting Disks (SED) for protection of data against loss or theft of SEDs. Protection is achieved by the use of encryption tech[...]

Local Key Management (LKM) You can use LKM to generate the key ID and the passphrase required to secure the virtual disk. You can secure virtual disks, change security keys, and manage secured foreign configurations using this security mode. NOTE: Under LKM, you are prompted for a passphrase when you create the key. Creating a security key NOTE: Th[...]

6. Enter an identifier for your Security Key. 7. Press <Tab> to enter a new passphrase. NOTE: You need to provide the current passphrase in order to change the security key on the controller. 8. Press <Tab> and select OK to accept the settings and to exit the window. Select Cancel to exit if you do not want to change the security key on[...]

Perform the following steps when securing a pre-existing virtual disk on a secured controller: 1. During the host system bootup, press <Ctrl> <R> when the BIOS screen is displayed. The Virtual Disk Management screen is displayed. If there is more than one controller, the main menu screen is displayed. 2. Select a controller, and press &[...]

7. Press <Tab> and select OK to finish importing the secured foreign configuration or select Cancel to exit this menu. If you select Cancel for the secured foreign import, the disks remain inaccessible until imported or instant secure erased. See Instant Secure Erase . Instant secure erase Instant Secure Erase is the process of permanently er[...]

9 Troubleshooting To get help with your Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) 9 series of cards, you can contact your Dell Technical Service representative or see dell.com/support . BIOS configuration utility error messages The controller BIOS read-only memory (ROM) provides Int 13h functionality (disk I/O) for the virtual disks connected to the co[...]

Probable Cause: The message indicates that some configured disks were removed. If the disks were not removed, they are no longer accessible. The SAS cables for your system might be improperly connected. Corrective Action: Check the cable connections and fix any issues. Restart the system. If there are no cable problems, press any key or <C> t[...]

power off your system and check your cables to ensure all disks are present. If you continue, the data in cache will be permanently discarded. Press 'X' to acknowledge and permanently destroy the cached data. Probable Cause: The controller preserves the dirty cache from a virtual disk if the disk becomes offline or is deleted because of m[...]

Offline or missing virtual drives with preserved cache error message Error Message: There are offline or missing virtual drives with preserved cache. Please check the cables and ensure that all drives are present. Press any key to enter the configuration utility . Probable Cause: The controller preserves the dirty cache from a virtual disk if the d[...]

Memory or battery problem error message Error Message: Memory/Battery problems were detected. The adapter has recovered, but cached data was lost. Press any key to continue Probable Cause: The message occurs under the following conditions: • The adapter detects data in the controller cache that has not yet been written to the disk subsystem. • [...]

If you insert a physical disk that was previously a member of a virtual disk in the system, and that disk’s previous location has been taken by a replacement disk through a rebuild, you must manually remove the foreign configuration flag of the newly inserted disk. Previous configuration cleared or missing error message Error Message: Previous co[...]

Memory errors Memory errors can corrupt cached data, so the controllers are designed to detect and attempt to recover from the memory errors. Single-bit memory errors can be handled by the controller and do not disrupt normal operation. A notification is sent if the number of single-bit errors exceeds a threshold value. Multi-bit errors are more se[...]

create an unsecured virtual disk even if there is a security key. Select the Secure VD option as No in the Create New VD menu. For steps on how to create an unsecured virtual disk, see Creating virtual disks . Failure to delete security key A security key is used to lock or unlock access to a security-enabled component. This key is not utilized in [...]

Unable to rebuild a fault tolerant virtual disk Issue: Cannot rebuild a fault tolerant virtual disk. For more information, see the alert log for virtual disks. Corrective Action: The replacement disk is too small or not compatible with the virtual disk. Replace the failed disk with a compatible good physical disk with equal or greater capacity. Fat[...]

Rebuilding a failed physical disk Issue: Rebuilding a physical disk that is in a failed state. Corrective Action: If you have configured hot spares, the PERC card automatically tries to use one of the hot spares to rebuild a physical disk that is in a failed state. Manual rebuild is necessary if no hot spares with enough capacity to rebuild the fai[...]

SMART errors SMART monitors the internal performance of all motors, heads, and physical disk electronics and detects predictable physical disk failures. NOTE: For information about where to find reports of SMART errors that could indicate hardware failure, see the Dell OpenManage storage management documentation at dell.com/support/ manuals . Smart[...]

Source disk fails during replace member operation Issue: The source disk fails during the Replace Member operation. Corrective Action: If the source data is available from other disks in the virtual disk, the rebuild begins automatically on the target disk, using the data from the other disks. Target disk fails Issue: The target disk fails. Correct[...]

Unable to register SCSI device error message Error: smartd[smartd[2338] Device: /dev/sda, Bad IEC (SMART) mode page, err=-5, skip device smartd[2338] Unable to register SCSI device /dev/sda at line 1 of file /etc/smartd.conf . Corrective Action: This is a known issue. An unsupported command is entered through the user application. User applications[...]

Corrective Action: 1. Check if the cables are connected properly, or replace missing hard drives, if any and then restart the system. 2. Press any key to load the driver health manager to display the configurations. The Driver Health Manager displays the driver(s), which requires configuration. 3. Alternately, if the UEFI driver requires configurat[...]

10 Appendix: RAID description RAID is a group of independent physical disks that provides high performance by increasing the number of disks used for saving and accessing data. CAUTION: In the event of a physical disk failure, a RAID 0 virtual disk fails, resulting in data loss. A RAID disk subsystem offers the following benefits: • Improved I/O [...]

KB, 256 KB, 512 KB, and 1 MB. The stripes are interleaved in a repeated sequential manner. The part of the stripe on a single physical disk is called a stripe element. For example, in a four-disk system using only disk striping (used in RAID 0), segment 1 is written to disk 1, segment 2 is written to disk 2, and so on. Disk striping enhances perfor[...]

Parity data Parity data is redundant data that is generated to provide fault tolerance within certain RAID levels. In the event of a disk failure, the parity data can be used by the controller to regenerate user data. Parity data is present for RAID 5, 6, 50, and 60. The parity data is distributed across all the physical disks in the system. If a s[...]

11 Getting help You can get help with your Dell product by contacting Dell, or send feedback on product documentation. Contacting Dell Dell provides several online and telephone-based support and service options. If you do not have an active Internet connection, you can find contact information on your purchase invoice, packing slip, bill, or Dell [...]