Entering the BIOS Configuration UtilityDell™ PowerEdge™ Expandable RAID Controller 4/Di/Si and 4e/Di/Si User's Guide
Entering the BIOS Configuration Utility
Exiting the Configuration Utility
BIOS Configuration Utility Menu Options
This section describes how to configure physical drives into arrays and logical drives using the BIOS Configuration Utility. Your PERC controller can also be configured using the Dell OpenManage Array or Dell OpenManage Storage Management applications. See RAID Management Utilities in Features for information about the OpenManage applications.
The BIOS Configuration Utility configures disk arrays and logical drives. Because the utility resides in the RAID controller BIOS, its operation is independent of the operating systems on your system.
When the host computer boots, hold the <Ctrl> key and press the <M> key when a BIOS banner similar to the following displays (the text for the BIOS banner may vary slightly between controllers and BIOS versions):
HA -0 (Bus X Dev X) Type: PERC 4e/Di Standard FWx.xx SDRAM=xxx MB
Battery Module is Present on Adapter
1 Logical Drive found on the Host Adapter
Adapter BIOS Disabled, No Logical Drives handled by BIOS
0 Logical Drive(s) handled by BIOS
Press <Ctrl><M> to Enable BIOS
For each controller in the host system, the firmware version, dynamic random access memory (DRAM) size, and the status of logical drives on that controller display. After you press a key to continue, the Management Menu screen displays.
 |
NOTE: In the BIOS Configuration Utility, pressing <Ctrl><M> has the same effect as pressing <Enter>. |
|
NOTE: You can access multiple controllers through the BIOS Configuration Utility. Be sure to verify which controller you are currently set to edit. |
|
NOTE: The OpenManage™ Array Manager and Dell OpenManage Storage Management can perform many of the same tasks as the BIOS Configuration Utility. |
After you have attached all physical drives, use a configuration utility to prepare a logical drive. Your SCSI hard drives must be organized into logical drives in an array and be able to support the RAID level that you select. If the operating system is not yet installed, use the BIOS Configuration Utility to perform this procedure. If the operating system is installed, you can use OpenManage Array Manager (for Windows and NetWare) or Dell OpenManage Storage Management.
Use the configuration utilities to perform the following tasks:
The following sections describe the menu options and provide detailed instructions used to perform the configuration tasks. The following is a list of the procedures used to configure hard disk drives into arrays and logical drives. They apply to the BIOS Configuration Utility, OpenManage Array Manager, and Dell OpenManage Storage Management. The following is a list of the configuration steps:
See Designating Drives as Hot Spares in this section for more information.
See Configure Menu for more information.
See Simple Array Setup and Advanced Array Setup for the detailed configuration procedures.
Figure 4-1 shows the menu tree for the BIOS Configuration Utility. The following sections describe each menu item.
Figure 4-1. BIOS Configuration Utility Menu Tree
Table 4-1 describes the options for the BIOS Configuration Utility Management Menu. The menu and sub-menu options are explained in the following sections.
Table 4-1. BIOS Configuration Utility Menu Options
Select Configure to select a method for configuring arrays and logical drives. Table 4-2 displays the configuration methods, clear configuration option, and boot drive option.
Table 4-2. Configuration Menu Options
|
NOTE: See Simple Array Setup or Advanced Array Setup for steps for initializing logical drives. |
Select Initialize from the Management Menu to initialize one or more logical drives. Press the space bar to select a single drive or the <F2> key to select all drives for initialization. This action typically follows the configuration of a new logical drive.
 |
NOTICE: Initializing a logical drive destroys all data on the logical drive. |
Select Objects from the Management Menu to access the adapters, logical drives, physical drives, and SCSI channels individually. You can also change settings for each object. The Objects menu options are described in the following sections.
Select Objects→ Adapter to select a controller (if the computer has more than one) and to modify parameters. Table 4-3 describes the Adapter menu options.
Table 4-3. Adapter Menu Options
|
Option |
Description |
|---|---|
Select this option to erase the current configuration from the controller non-volatile memory. | |
Select this option to enable or disable the FlexRAID PowerFail feature. This option allows drive reconstruction, rebuild, and check consistency to continue when the system restarts because of a power failure, reset, or hard boot. | |
Select this option to write zeros to the first sector of the logical drive so that initialization occurs in 2 – 3 seconds. When this option is set to Disabled, a full initialization takes place on the entire logical drive. On a larger array (over 5 arrays), it is best to set fast initialization to Disabled, then initialize. Otherwise, the controller will run a background consistency check within five minutes of reboot or RAID 5 creation. | |
Select this option to set the method and timing for spinning up the hard drives. | |
Select this option to set the cache flush interval to once every 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10 seconds. The default is 4. | |
Use this option to select the rebuild rate for drives attached to the selected adapter. The rebuild rate is the percentage of the system resources dedicated to rebuilding a failed drive. A rebuild rate of 100 percent means the system is totally dedicated to rebuilding the failed drive. The default is 30 percent. | |
Select this option to enable, disable, or silence the onboard alarm tone generator. The alarm sounds when there is a change in a drive state, such as when a drive fails or when a rebuild is complete. | |
Provides general information about the adapter, such as the firmware version, and BIOS version. | |
Select this option to load the default BIOS Configuration Utility settings. | |
Select this option to enable or disable the BIOS on the adapter. If the boot device is on the RAID controller, the BIOS must be enabled; otherwise, the BIOS should be disabled or it might not be possible to use a boot device elsewhere. | |
You can operate in the I2O mode or mass storage mode Dell recommends that you use only mass storage mode, and Dell drivers only. | |
Set to Enabled to automatically rebuild drives when they fail. | |
Displays the Initiator ID for the cluster card. It cannot have the same ID as the other node. The default is 7. | |
Use this to select the following options for BIOS actions during bootup: BIOS Stops on Error: When set to On, the BIOS stops in case of a problem with the configuration. This gives you the option to enter the configuration utility to resolve the problem. The default is On. BIOS Echoes Messages: When set to On (the default), all controller BIOS messages display during bootup. BIOS Configuration Autoselection: Use this option if there is a mismatch between configuration data in the drives and NVRAM, so you can select a method to resolve it. The options are NVRAM, Disk, and User. The default is User. | |
Patrol Read involves the review of your system for possible hard drive errors that could lead to drive failure, then action to correct errors. The goal is to protect data integrity by detecting physical drive failure before the failure can damage data. Patrol Read occurs only when the controller is idle for a defined period of time and no other background tasks are active. Patrol Read Options gives you the ability to start and stop Patrol Reads, display Patrol Read status, and set the Patrol Read mode. See Patrol Read for detailed information about the Patrol Read. |
Table 4-4 describes the Patrol Read Options submenu. See Patrol Read for detailed information about the Patrol Read.
Table 4-4. Patrol Read Options Menu
Select Objects→ Logical Drive to select a logical drive and to perform the actions listed in Table 4-5.
Table 4-5. Logical Drive Menu Options
Select Objects→ Physical Drive to select a physical device and to perform the operations listed in the table below. The physical drives in the computer are listed. Move the cursor to the desired device and press <Enter> to display the screen.
Table 4-6 displays the operations you can perform on the physical drives.
Table 4-6. Physical Drive Menu Options
|
Option |
Description |
|---|---|
Displays the drive properties for the selected physical device. | |
Select this option to enable or disable write cache on this device. See Logical Drive Parameters and Descriptions in this section for more information about write cache policy. | |
Selects the speed at which data is transferred. Displays a menu that contains the options Negotiation=Wide, and Set Transfer Speed. The maximum transfer speed is 320 M. |
Select Objects→ Channel to select a SCSI channel on the currently selected controller. After you select a channel, press <Enter> to display the options for that channel. Table 4-7 describes the SCSI channel menu options.
Table 4-7. SCSI Channel Menu Options
You can clear the data from SCSI drives using the configuration utilities. See Clearing Physical Drives for more information and the procedure for clearing the data.
Select Rebuild from the Management Menu to rebuild one or more failed physical drives. See Rebuilding Failed Hard Drives for more information and the procedure to perform a drive rebuild.
Select Check Consistency to verify the redundancy data in logical drives that use RAID levels 1, 5, 10, and 50. See Checking Data Consistency for more information and the procedure to perform a check consistency.
Select Reconstruct to change the RAID level of an array or add a physical drive to an existing array. RAID level migration changes the array from one RAID level to another. Online capacity expansion is the addition of hard disk drives to increase storage capacity.
This section deals with device management, which means management of the physical devices. This includes the physical drives, hot spares, drive migration, and drive roaming. See Drive Roaming and Drive Migration for details about these procedures.
The configuration utility offers the Physical Drive Selection Menu which you can use to perform actions on the physical drives in an array, such as rebuilding a drive or making a hot spare online or offline. Some of these actions are described in detail in other sections of this chapter. Perform the following steps to view the actions you can select.
A physical drive selection screen appears.
The menu items are:
You can fill in the following table to list the devices assigned to Channel 1. The PERC 4/Si and 4e/Si controllers have one channel, and the PERC 4/Di and 4e/Di have two.
Use Table 4-8 to list the devices that you assign to each SCSI ID for SCSI Channel 1.
Table 4-8. Configuration for SCSI Channel 1
|
SCSI Channel 1 | |
|
SCSI ID |
Device Description |
This section describes the steps used in Easy Configuration to set up a simple array and create logical drives. In Easy Configuration, each physical array you create is associated with exactly one logical drive, so you cannot span arrays. In addition, in Easy Configuration, you cannot change the logical drive size.
You can modify the following logical drive parameters, which are described in Table 4-9. The spanning option is also described in Table 4-9, though you cannot span arrays using Easy Configuration.
Table 4-9. Logical Drive Parameters and Descriptions
If logical drives have already been configured when you select Easy Configuration, the configuration information is not disturbed. Perform the following steps to create arrays and logical drives using Easy Configuration.
Hot key information displays at the bottom of the screen.
The selected drive changes from READY to ONLIN A[array number]-[drive number]. For example, ONLIN A02-03 means array 2 with hard drive 3.
Try to use drives of the same capacity in a specific array. If you use drives with different capacities in an array, all drives in the array are treated as if they have the capacity of the smallest drive in the array.
|
NOTE: When you create a logical drive, you can select more than 2 TB of physical hard drive space, but 2 TB is the largest logical drive you can create. After you select the physical drives, you are prompted to press <Enter> to accept the 2TB logical drive size. You are then prompted to accept the next logical drive, which will be the remaining amount of physical hard drive space. |
The Select Configurable Array(s) window appears. It displays the array and array number, such as A-00.
|
NOTE: You can press <F2> to display the number of drives in the array, their channel and ID, and press <F3> to display array information, such as the stripes, slots, and free space. |
See Designating Drives as Hot Spares for more information.
The window at the top of the screen shows the logical drive that is currently being configured.
The available RAID levels for the current logical drive display.
The array selection screen appears if any unconfigured hard drives remain.
The RAID controller supports up to 40 logical drives per controller.
A list of the currently configured logical drives appears.
After you respond to the prompt, the Configure menu appears.
The logical drives you configured need to be initialized to prepare them for use.
The configured logical drives display.
|
NOTE: When the Fast Initialization option in the Objects→ Adapter menu is set to Disabled, a full initialization takes place on the entire logical drive. On a larger array (over 5 arrays), it is best to set fast initialization to Disabled, then initialize. Otherwise, the controller will run a background consistency check within five minutes of reboot or RAID 5 creation. |
|
NOTE: A full initialization will not resume after a power loss; it will start completely over. |
A progress bar displays.
The following procedures describe more advanced array and logical drive setups. The difference between simple setup and advanced setup is that you can select drive size and span arrays in advanced setup. The configuration utilities offer New Configuration and View/Add Configuration options, which are described in the following procedures.
If you select New Configuration, the existing configuration information on the selected controller is destroyed when the new configuration is saved. In New Configuration, you can modify the following logical drive parameters:
|
NOTICE: Selecting New Configuration erases the existing configuration information on the selected controller. To use the existing configuration, use View/Add Configuration. |
Hot key information appears at the bottom of the screen.
The selected drive changes from READY to ONLINE A[array number]-[drive number]. For example, ONLINE A02-03 means array 2 with hard drive 3.
Try to use drives of the same capacity in a specific array. If you use drives with different capacities in an array, all drives in the array are treated as if they have the capacity of the smallest drive in the array.
|
NOTE: When you create a logical drive, you can select more than 2 TB of physical hard drive space, but 2 TB is the largest logical drive you can create. After you select the physical drives, you are prompted to press <Enter> to accept the 2TB logical drive size. You are then prompted to accept the next logical drive, which will be the remaining amount of physical hard drive space. |
The Select Configurable Array(s) window appears. It displays the array and array number, such as A-00.
Span information displays in the array box. You can create multiple arrays, then select them to span them.
|
NOTE: You can press <F2> to display the number of drives in the array, their channel and ID, and <F3> to display array information, such as the stripes, slots, and free space. |
The logical drive configuration screen appears. Span=Yes displays on this screen if you select two or more arrays to span.
The window at the top of the screen shows the logical drive that is currently being configured as well as any existing logical drives.
A list of the available RAID levels for the current logical drive appears.
|
NOTE: Make sure that the spans are in different backplanes, so that if one span fails, you won't lose the whole array. |
By default, the logical drive size is set to all available space in the array(s) being associated with the current logical drive, accounting for the Span setting.
If space remains in the arrays, the next logical drive to be configured appears. If the array space has been used, a list of the existing logical drives appears.
The logical drives you configured need to be initialized to prepare them for use.
The configured logical drives display.
|
NOTE: A full initialization will not resume after a power loss; it will start completely over. |
A progress bar displays.
View/Add Configuration allows you to control the same logical drive parameters as New Configuration without disturbing the existing configuration information. In addition, you can enable the Configuration on Disk feature.
Hot key information appears at the bottom of the screen.
The selected drive changes from READY to ONLIN A[array number]-[drive number]. For example, ONLIN A02-03 means array 2 with hard drive 3.
Try to use drives of the same capacity in a specific array. If you use drives with different capacities in an array, all drives in the array are treated as if they have the capacity of the smallest drive in the array.
|
NOTE: When you create a logical drive, you can select more than 2 TB of physical hard drive space, but 2 TB is the largest logical drive you can create. After you select the physical drives, you are prompted to press <Enter> to accept the 2TB logical drive size. You are then prompted to accept the next logical drive, which will be the remaining amount of physical hard drive space. |
The Select Configurable Array(s) window appears. It displays the array and array number, such as A-00.
Span information, such as Span-1, displays in the array box. You can create multiple arrays, then select them to span them.
|
NOTE: You can press <F2> to display the number of drives in the array, their channel and ID, and <F3> to display array information, such as the stripes, slots, and free space. |
The logical drive configuration screen appears. Span=Yes displays on this screen if you select two or more arrays to span.
The available RAID levels for the current logical drive appear.
The maximum number of spans is eight.
By default, the logical drive size is set to all available space in the array(s) associated with the current logical drive, accounting for the Span setting.
|
NOTE: The full drive size is used when you span logical drives; you cannot specify a smaller drive size. |
If space remains in the arrays, the next logical drive to be configured appears.
If all array space is used, a list of the existing logical drives appears.
The logical drives you configured need to be initialized to prepare them for use.
The configured logical drives display.
|
NOTE: A full initialization will not resume after a power loss; it will start completely over. |
A progress bar displays.
Your SCSI hard drives must be organized into logical drives in an array and must be able to support the RAID level that you select. This section describes:
Observe the following guidelines when connecting and configuring SCSI devices in a RAID array:
When implementing RAID 1 or RAID 5, disk space is spanned to create the stripes and mirrors. The span size can vary to accommodate the different disk sizes. There is, however, the possibility that a portion of the largest disk in the array will be unusable, resulting in wasted disk space. For example, consider a RAID 1 array that has the following disks, as shown in Table 4-10.
Table 4-10. Storage Space in a RAID 1 Array
|
Disk |
Disk Size |
Storage Space Used in Logical Drive for RAID 1 Array |
Storage Space Left Unused |
|---|---|---|---|
In the RAID 1 example, data is mirrored across the two disks until 20 GB on Disk A and B are completely full. This leaves 10 GB of disk space on Disk B. Data cannot be written to this remaining disk space, as there is no corresponding disk space available in the array to create redundant data.
Table 4-11 provides an example of a RAID 5 array.
Table 4-11. Storage Space in a RAID 5 Array
|
Disk |
Disk Size |
Storage Space Used in Logical Drive for RAID 5 Array |
Storage Space Left Unused |
|---|---|---|---|
In the RAID 5 example, data is striped across the disks until 40 GB on Disks A, B, and C are completely full. This leaves 20 GB of disk space on Disk C. Data cannot be written to this remaining disk space, as there is no corresponding disk space available in the array to create redundant data.
RAID levels 10 and 50 span RAID 1 and RAID 5 arrays, respectively. When one array fills its available storage space, the other array(s) may have additional storage space available. You can still use fill the additional available space in the larger array(s). Because there is additional storage space in the larger array(s), you can use arrays of different sizes without having to leave storage space unused. See Storage in RAID 10 and RAID 50 Arrays for more information about storage space in RAID 10 and 50 arrays.
Only one RAID level can be assigned to each logical drive. Table 4-12 shows the minimum and maximum number of drives required for each RAID level.
Table 4-12. Physical Drives Required for Each RAID Level
|
RAID Level |
Minimum # of Physical Drives |
Maximum # of Physical Drives for PERC 4//si and 4e/Si |
Maximum # of Physical Drives for PERC 4/Di and 4e/Di |
|---|---|---|---|
After you configure and initialize the hard drives, you are ready to configure arrays. The number of drives in an array determines the RAID levels that can be supported. For information about the number of drives required for different RAID levels, see Table 4-12 in Assigning RAID Levels.
Logical drives, also known as virtual disks, are arrays or spanned arrays that are available to the operating system. The storage space in a logical drive is spread across all the physical drives in the array or spanned arrays.
You must create one or more logical drives for each array, and the logical drive capacity must include all of the drive space in an array. You can make the logical drive capacity larger by spanning arrays. In an array of drives with mixed sizes, the smallest common drive size is used and the space in larger drives is not used. The RAID controller supports up to 40 logical drives.
After you have attached all physical drives, perform the following steps to prepare a logical drive. If the operating system is not yet installed, use the BIOS Configuration Utility to perform this procedure.
In the BIOS Configuration Utility, use either Easy Configuration or New Configuration to customize the RAID array.
|
CAUTION: If you select New Configuration, all previous configuration information will be deleted. |
|
NOTE: Refer to the section Summary of RAID Levels for RAID level explanations and Table 4-9 for information about the policy settings. |
After initialization, you can install the operating system.
|
NOTE: A full initialization will not resume after a power loss; it will start completely over. |
See Simple Array Setup and Advanced Array Setup for detailed configuration instructions.
You can arrange arrays sequentially with an identical number of drives so that the drives in the different arrays are spanned. Spanned drives can be treated as one large drive. Data can be striped across multiple arrays as one logical drive. The maximum number of spans is eight.
You can create spanned drives using your array management software, which is the BIOS Configuration Utility.
For RAID levels 0 and 5, data is striped across the disks. If the hard drives in an array are not the same size, data is striped across all the drives until one or more of the drives is full. After one or more drives are full, disk space left on the other disks cannot be used. Data cannot be written to that disk space because other drives do not have corresponding disk space available.
Figure 4-2 shows an example of storage allocation in a RAID 5 array. The data is striped, with parity, across the three drives until the smallest drive is full. The remaining storage space in the other hard drives cannot be used because not all of the drives have disk space for redundant data.
|
NOTE: Using hard disk drives of different sizes is not recommended. |
Figure 4-2. Storage in a RAID 5 Array
You can span RAID 1 and 5 arrays to create RAID 10 and RAID 50 arrays, respectively. For RAID levels 10 and 50, you can have some arrays with more storage space than others. After the storage space in the smaller arrays is full, you can use the additional space in larger arrays can store data.
Figure 4-3 shows the example of a RAID 50 span with three RAID 5 arrays of different sizes. (Each array can have from three to 14 hard disks.) Data is striped across the three RAID 5 arrays until the smallest array is full. The data is striped across the remaining two RAID 5 arrays until the smaller of the two arrays is full. Finally, data is stored in the additional space in the largest array.
Figure 4-3. Storage in a RAID 50 Array
The system performance improves as the number of spans increases. As the storage space in the spans is filled, the system stripes data over fewer and fewer spans and RAID performance degrades to that of a RAID 1 or RAID 5 array.
You can clear the data from SCSI drives using the configuration utilities. To clear a drive, perform the following steps:
A device selection window displays the devices connected to the current controller.
|
NOTICE: Do not terminate the clearing process, as it makes the drive unusable. You would have to clear the drive again before you could use it. |
Check the View Drive Information screen for the drive to be formatted. Perform the following steps to display this screen which contains the media errors:
The error count displays at the bottom of the properties screen as they occur. If you feel that the number of errors is excessive, you should probably clear the hard drive. You do not have to select Clear to erase existing information on your SCSI disks, such as a DOS partition. That information is erased when you initialize logical drives.
Hot spares are physical drives that are powered up along with the RAID drives and usually stay in a standby state. If a hard drive used in a RAID logical drive fails, a hot spare will automatically take its place and the data on the failed drive is reconstructed on the hot spare. Hot spares can be used for RAID levels 1, 5, 10, and 50. Each controller supports up to eight hot spares.
|
NOTE: In the BIOS Configuration Utility, only global hot spares can be assigned. Dedicated hot spares cannot be assigned. |
The methods for designating physical drives as hot spares are:
When you select any configuration option, a list of all physical devices connected to the current controller appears. Perform the following steps to designate a drive as a hot spare:
The drive displays as HOTSP.
A physical drive selection screen appears.
The selected drive displays as HOTSP.
If a hard drive fails in an array that is configured as a RAID 1, 5, 10, or 50 logical drive, you can recover the lost data by rebuilding the drive with another drive or drives. You can manually rebuild one drive or a group of drives using the manual rebuild procedures in this section.
If a system is rebooted during a rebuild operation, it is possible for the rebuild to restart from 0 percent.
|
NOTE: An array may take longer to rebuild when under high stress; for example, when there is one rebuild I/O operation to five host I/O operations. |
|
NOTE: In a clustering environment, if a node fails during a rebuild, the rebuild is re-started by another node. The rebuild on the second mode starts at zero percent. |
Table 4-13 describes automatic and manual rebuilds.
|
NOTE: If a rebuild to a hotspare fails for any reason, the hotspare drive will be marked as "failed". |
Use the following procedures to rebuild one failed drive manually in an individual mode or multiple drives in a batch mode.
A device selection window displays the devices connected to the current controller.
See Designating Drives as Hot Spares for instructions on designating a hot spare.
Rebuilding can take some time, depending on the drive capacity.
A device selection window displays the devices connected to the current controller. The failed drives display as FAIL.
The selected drives change to REBLD. Rebuilding can take some time, depending on the number of drives selected and the drive capacities.
Select the Check Consistency option in the configuration utility to verify the redundancy data in logical drives that use RAID levels 1, 5, 10, and 50. (RAID 0 does not provide data redundancy.) The parameters of the existing logical drives appear and discrepancies are automatically corrected when the data is correct. However, if the failure is a read error on a data drive, the bad data block is reassigned and the data is re-generated.
|
NOTE: Dell recommends that you run data consistency checks on a redundant array at least once a month. This allows detection and automatic replacement of bad blocks. Finding a bad block during a rebuild of a failed drive is a serious problem, as the system does not have the redundancy to recover the data. |
|
NOTE: The system will take longer to reboot after you perform a data consistency check. |
Perform the following steps to run Check Consistency:
A progress graph for each selected logical drive displays.
(To check an individual drive, select Objects—> Logical Drives from the Management Menu, the desired logical drive(s), then Check Consistency on the action menu.)
|
NOTE: Stay at the Check Consistency menu until the check is complete. |
A reconstruction occurs when you change the RAID level of an array or add a physical drive to an existing array. RAID level migration changes the array from one RAID level to another. Online capacity expansion is the addition of hard disk drives to increase storage capacity. You can perform a reconstruction while the system continues to run, without having to reboot. This avoids downtime and keeps data available to users.
|
NOTE: After you start the reconstruct process, you must wait until it is complete. Do not reboot, cancel, or exit until the reconstruction is complete. |
|
NOTE: When performing a RAID level migration or an online capacity expansion, a fictional disk may appear in the Windows Disk Management, Dell OpenManage Array Manager, or Dell OpenManage Storage Services application, if the system is rebooted before the process is finished. This disk can be ignored and will disappear once the RAID level migration or online capacity expansion is complete. |
Performing a RAID level migration on a clustered system will change the system to non-clustered mode, causing a cluster mismatch error if the system is rebooted.
|
NOTE: An automatic drive rebuild will not start if you replace a drive during a RAID level migration or an online capacity expansion. The rebuild must be started manually after the expansion or migration procedure is complete. |
Perform the following steps to reconstruct a drive:
A window entitled "Reconstructables" displays. This contains the logical drives that can be reconstructed. You can press <F2> to view logical drive information or <Enter> to select the reconstruct option.
The next reconstruction window displays. The options on this window are <spacebar> to select or deselect a drive, <Enter> to open the reconstruct menu, and <F3> to display logical drive information.
The menu items are RAID level, stripe size, and reconstruct.
You are prompted to start the reconstruction. A progress bar for the reconstruction displays.
Drive roaming occurs when the hard drives are changed to different target IDs or channels on the same controller. When the drives are placed on different channels, the controller detects the RAID configuration from the configuration data on the drives.
|
NOTE: In a clustering environment, drive roaming is supported within the same channel only. |
Configuration data is saved in both non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM) on the RAID controller and on the hard drives attached to the controller. This maintains the integrity of the data on each drive, even if the drives have changed their target ID.
|
NOTE: If you move a drive that is currently being rebuilt, the rebuild operation will restart, not resume. |
Perform the following steps to use drive roaming:
|
NOTE: The default for SCSI termination is onboard SCSI termination enabled. |
The controller then detects the RAID configuration from the configuration data on the drives.
Drive migration is the transfer of a set of hard drives in an existing configuration from one controller to another. The drives must remain on the same channel and be reinstalled in the same order as in the original configuration. The controller to which you migrate the drives cannot have an existing configuration.
|
NOTE: Only complete configurations can be migrated; individual virtual disks cannot be migrated. |
|
NOTE: Drive roaming and drive migration cannot be supported at the same time. |
Perform the following steps to migrate drives:
|
NOTE: When you perform a drive migration, move only the disks that make up the logical drive (not all the physical disks in an array), so you will not see an NVRAM mismatch error (providing a configuration is on the destination controller). The NVRAM mismatch error appears only if you move all of the physical drives to the other controller. |
|
NOTE: The default for SCSI termination is onboard SCSI termination enabled. |
The controller then detects the RAID configuration from the configuration data on the drives.
This RAID controller supports the ability to delete any unwanted logical drives and use that space for a new logical drive. You can have an array with multiple logical drives and delete a logical drive without deleting the whole array.
After you delete a logical drive, you can create a new one. You can use the configuration utilities to create the next logical drive from a free space (`hole'), and from the newly created arrays. The configuration utility provides a list of configurable arrays where there is a space to configure. In the BIOS Configuration Utility, you must create a logical drive in the hole before you create a logical drive using the rest of the disk.
|
NOTE: Warning messages display about the effect of deleting an array. You must accept two warning statements before the array deletion is completed. |
|
NOTICE: The deletion of the logical drive can fail under certain conditions: During a rebuild, initialization or check consistency of a logical drive. |
To delete logical drives, perform the following steps in the BIOS Configuration Utility:
The logical drives display.
This deletes the logical drive and makes the space it occupied available for you to make another logical drive.
The Patrol Read function is designed as a preventive measure to detect hard drive errors before drive failure can threaten data integrity. Patrol Read can find and possibly resolve any potential problem with physical drives prior to host access. This can enhance overall system performance because error recovery during a normal I/O operation may not be necessary.
The following is an overview of Patrol Read behavior:
You can use the BIOS Configuration Utility to configure Patrol Read. Dell OpenManage Array Manager and OpenManage System Storage Management cannot configure Patrol Read. Patrol Read can be started and stopped using MegaPR from within Window and Linux.
If any of the following conditions exist, then Patrol Read will not run on any of the affected disks:
The following describes the scheduling details for Patrol Read:
Patrol Read can be set to Manual or Automatic mode. When in Manual mode, the BIOS Configuration Utility can start and stop a Patrol Read iteration. MegaPR can be used to start and stop a Patrol Read iteration from Linux or Windows.
The BIOS Configuration Utility has options to configure Patrol Read on the controller. Access the Objects→ Adapter→ Patrol Read Options menu. Press <Enter> to open the Patrol Read submenu, which displays the following items:
The current setting displays as Manual/Auto/Disabled. When you select this option, a window opens to display the following options, with the current setting highlighted:
You can change the setting by selecting a different value upon confirmation.
When you select Patrol Read Status and press <Enter>, a window opens to display these options:
The current state is shown at the second option that allows you to display the percentage of completion by pressing <Enter> key if the Patrol Read state is Active. The first and the third options are read only.
When you select this option, a window opens to display the following options:
|
NOTE: Start or Stop options are available in manual mode only. |
The following are behavior details for Patrol Read:
MegaPR is a utility for managing and reporting the status of Patrol Read from the operating system. There are two versions of the utility: one for Windows 2000/2003, and one for Linux (RHEL 2.1, 3, and 4).
Available options are (help for individual options is available by typing cmd –[option] ?):