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Dell OpenManage™ Storage Management User's Guide
Some RAID controllers have batteries. If the controller has a battery, Storage Management displays the battery under the Controller object in the tree view.
In the event of a power outage, the controller battery preserves data that is in the nonvolatile cache memory (NVRAM) but not yet written to disk. The battery is designed to provide a minimum of 72 hours protection for DIMMs up to 64 MB and 48 hours protection for 128-MB DIMMs. The actual period of protection (or holdover time) depends on the battery's charge level.
When a RAID controller is first installed in a server, the battery is fully discharged. Once the server is powered, the battery begins a full charge cycle. On most controllers, it takes three hours to fully charge the battery. The controller can be used during this time; however, the battery is unable to meet the specified holdover time until it is fully charged. The battery is still able to handle brief power losses during the initial charge cycle.
There are two types of controller batteries:
The NiMHi batteries require that you run the battery recondition task every six months to maintain reliability. (See Battery Tasks: Recondition Battery for more information.) A battery recondition fully discharges and then recharges the battery. When the battery needs reconditioning, the controller reports its state as Degraded or Low Charge. In addition, the controller may generate event 2145 to indicate that the battery needs reconditioning.
The Li-Ion or lithium ion batteries are automatically reconditioned by the controller. These batteries do not require that you run the battery recondition task. To see which type of battery the RAID controller has, refer to the documentation that came with the controller.
All RAID controller batteries should be replaced every three years. You should also monitor the Recharge Count and Max Recharge Count properties for the battery. (See Battery Properties for more information.) These properties indicate when the battery is approaching the maximum number of times that it can be recharged. Once the battery approaches this limit, it should be replaced.
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Note: Some controllers do not have batteries. Other controllers have lithium ion batteries which are automatically reconditioned and therefore do not have a Recondition task in Storage Management. |
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