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.
Dell™ Manager is a character-based, non-GUI utility that changes policies, and parameters, and monitors RAID systems. Dell Manager runs under Red Hat® Enterprise Linux, Advanced Server edition and Enterprise edition.
NOTE: The OpenManage™ Array Manager can perform many of the same tasks as the BIOS
Configuration Utility and Dell Manager.
Verify that the redundancy data in logical drives using RAID level 1, 5, 10, or 50 is correct.
Reconstruct logical drives after changing RAID levels or adding a hard drive to an array.
Select a host controller to work on.
The BIOS Configuration Utility and the Dell Manager for Linux use the same command structure to configure controllers and disks. The following sections describe the steps to start either utility and detailed instructions to perform configuration steps using either utility.
NOTE: Dell Manager screens differ slightly from the BIOS Configuration Utility screens, but the utilities
have similar functions.
Starting the BIOS Configuration Utility
When the host computer boots, hold the <Ctrl> key and press the <M> key when a BIOS banner such as the following appears:
HA -0 (Bus X Dev X) Type: PERC 4 Standard FWx.xx SDRAM=128MB
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.
Starting Dell Manager
Make sure the program file is in the correct directory before you enter the command to start Dell Manager. For Linux, use the Dell Manager RPM to install files in the usr/sbin directory. The RPM installs them automatically in that directory.
Type dellmgr to start the program.
Using Dell Manager in Red Hat Linux GUI Mode
On a system running Red Hat Linux, for Dell Manager to work correctly in a terminal in GUI Mode, you must set the terminal type to linux and keyboard mappings.
Perform the procedure below if you use konsole, gnome terminal, or xterm.
The Linux console mode, which you select from the terminal with the File—>Linux Console command, works correctly by default. The text mode console (non-GUI) also works correctly by default.
To prepare the system to use Dell Manager, perform the following steps:
Start the Terminal.
Before you enter dellmgr to start Dell Manager, type the following commands:
TERM=linux
Export TERM
Select Settings—>Keyboard—>Linux Console from the Terminal menu.
NOTE: On a Red Hat Enterprise Linux system, when you run Dell Manager (v. x.xx) from a Gnome-
terminal in XWindows, the <F10> key cannot be used to create a logical drive. Instead, use the
alternate keys <Shift><0>. (This is not an issue if Xterm is used to call dellmgr). The following is a list
of alternate keys you can use in case of problems with keys <F1> through <F7>, and <F10>:
<Shift><1> for <F1>
<Shift><2> for <F2>
<Shift><3> for <F3>
<Shift><4> for <F4>
<Shift><5> for <F5>
<Shift><6> for <F6>
<Shift><7> for <F7>
<Shift><0> for <F10>
Configuring Arrays and Logical Drives
The following procedures apply to both the BIOS Configuration Utility and the Dell Manager for Linux.
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 and Dell Manager, only global hot spares can be assigned.
Dedicated hot spares cannot be assigned.
The methods for designating physical drives as hot spares are:
Pressing <F4> while creating arrays in Easy, New or View/Add Configuration mode.
Using the Objects—>Physical Drive menu.
<F4> Key
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:
On the Management Menu select Configure, then a configuration option.
Press the arrow keys to highlight a hard drive that displays as READY.
Press <F4> to designate the drive as a hot spare.
Click YES to make the hot spare.
The drive displays as HOTSP.
Save the configuration.
Objects Menu
On the Management Menu select Objects—>Physical Drive.
A physical drive selection screen appears.
Select a hard drive in the READY state and press <Enter> to display the action menu for the
drive.
Press the arrow keys to select Make HotSpare and press <Enter>.
After you create an array or arrays, you can select the parameters for the logical drive. Table 5-1 contains descriptions of the parameters.
Table 5-1. Logical Drive Parameters and Descriptions
Parameter
Description
RAID Level
The number of physical drives in a specific array determines the RAID levels that can be implemented with the array.
Stripe Size
Stripe Size specifies the size of the segments written to each drive in a RAID 1, 5, or 10 logical drive. You can set the stripe size to 8 KB, 16 KB, 32 KB, 64 KB, or 128 KB. The default is 64 KB.
A larger stripe size provides better read performance, especially if your computer does mostly sequential reads. However, if you are sure that your computer does random read requests more often, select a small stripe size.
Write Policy
Write Policy specifies the cache write policy. You can set the write policy to Write-back or Write-through.
In Write-back caching, the controller sends a data transfer completion signal to the host when the controller cache has received all the data in a transaction. This setting is recommended in standard mode.
NOTICE: If WriteBack is enabled and the system is quickly turned off and on, the
RAID controller may hang when flushing cache memory. Controllers that contain a
battery backup will default to WriteBack caching.
In Write-through caching, the controller sends a data transfer completion signal to the host when the disk subsystem has received all the data in a transaction.
Write-through caching has a data security advantage over write-back caching. Write-back caching has a performance advantage over write-through caching.
NOTE: You should not use write-back for any logical drive that is to be used as a
Novell NetWare volume.
NOTE: Enabling clustering turns off write cache. PERC 4/DC and PERC 4e/DC
support clustering.
Read Policy
Read-ahead enables the read-ahead feature for the logical drive. You can set this parameter to Read-Ahead, No-Read-ahead, or Adaptive. The default is Adaptive.
Read-ahead specifies that the controller uses read-ahead for the current logical drive. Read-ahead capability allows the adapter to read sequentially ahead of requested data and store the additional data in cache memory, anticipating that the data will be needed soon. Read-ahead supplies sequential data faster, but is not as effective when accessing random data.
No-Read-Ahead specifies that the controller does not use read-ahead for the current logical drive.
Adaptive specifies that the controller begins using read-ahead if the two most recent disk accesses occurred in sequential sectors. If all read requests are random, the algorithm reverts to No-Read-Ahead; however, all requests are still evaluated for possible sequential operation.
Cache Policy
Cache Policy applies to reads on a specific logical drive. It does not affect the Read-ahead cache. The default is Direct I/O.
Cached I/O specifies that all reads are buffered in cache memory.
Direct I/O specifies that reads are not buffered in cache memory. Direct I/O does not override the cache policy settings. Data is transferred to cache and the host concurrently. If the same data block is read again, it comes from cache memory.
Span
The choices are:
Yes—Array spanning is enabled for the current logical drive. The logical drive can occupy space in more than one array.
No—Array spanning is disabled for the current logical drive. The logical drive can occupy space in only one array.
The RAID controller supports spanning of RAID 1 and 5 arrays. You can span two or more RAID 1 arrays into a RAID 10 array and two or more RAID 5 arrays into a RAID 50 array.
For two arrays to be spanned, they must have the same stripe width (they must contain the same number of physical drives).
Using Easy Configuration
In Easy Configuration, each physical array you create is associated with exactly one logical drive. You can modify the following parameters:
RAID level
Stripe size
Write policy
Read policy
Cache policy
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.
Select Configure—> Easy Configuration from the Management Menu.
Hot key information displays at the bottom of the screen.
Press the arrow keys to highlight specific physical drives.
Press the spacebar to associate the selected physical drive with the current array.
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.
Add physical drives to the current array as desired.
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.
Press <Enter> after you finish creating the current array.
The Select Configurable Array(s) window appears. It displays the array and array number, such as A-00.
Press the spacebar to select the array.
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.
Press <F10> to configure logical drives.
The window at the top of the screen shows the logical drive that is currently being configured.
Highlight RAID and press <Enter> to set the RAID level for the logical drive.
The available RAID levels for the current logical drive display.
Select a RAID level and press <Enter> to confirm.
Click Advanced Menu to open the menu for logical drive settings.
Set the Stripe Size.
Set the Write Policy.
Set the Read Policy.
Set the Cache Policy.
Press <Esc> to exit the Advanced Menu.
After you define the current logical drive, select Accept and press <Enter>.
The array selection screen appears if any unconfigured hard drives remain.
Repeat step 2 through step 16 to configure another array and logical drive.
The RAID controller supports up to 40 logical drives per controller.
When finished configuring logical drives, press <Esc> to exit Easy Configuration.
A list of the currently configured logical drives appears.
Respond to the Save prompt.
After you respond to the prompt, the Configure menu appears.
Initialize the logical drives you have just configured.
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:
RAID level
Stripe size
Write policy
Read policy
Cache policy
Logical drive size
Spanning of arrays
NOTICE: Selecting New Configurationerases the existing configuration information on the selected
controller. To use the existing configuration, use View/Add Configuration.
Select Configure—>New Configuration from the Management Menu.
Hot key information appears at the bottom of the screen.
Press the arrow keys to highlight specific physical drives.
Press the spacebar to associate the selected physical drive with the current array.
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.
Add physical drives to the current array as desired.
NOTE: 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.
Press <Enter> twice after you finish creating the current array.
The Select Configurable Array(s) window appears. It displays the array and array number, such as A-00.
Press the spacebar to select the array.
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.
Repeat step 2 through step 6 to create another array or go to step 8 to configure a logical
drive.
Press <F10> to configure a logical drive.
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.
Highlight RAID and press <Enter> to set the RAID level for the logical drive.
A list of the available RAID levels for the current logical drive appears.
Select a RAID level and press <Enter> to confirm.
Highlight Span and press <Enter>.
Highlight a spanning option and press <Enter>.
NOTE: The PERC 4 family supports spanning for RAID 1 and RAID 5 only. You can configure RAID 10
by spanning two or more RAID 1 logical drives. You can configure RAID 50 by spanning two or more
RAID 5 logical drives. The logical drives must have the same stripe size.
Move the cursor to Size and press <Enter> to set the logical drive size.
NOTE: The full drive size is used when you span logical drives; you cannot specify a smaller drive
size.
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.
Click AdvancedMenu to open the menu for logical drive settings.
Set the Stripe Size.
Set the Write Policy.
Set the Read Policy.
Set the Cache Policy.
Press <Esc> to exit the Advanced Menu.
After you define the current logical drive, select Accept and press <Enter>.
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.
Press any key to continue, then respond to the Save prompt.
Initialize the logical drives you have just configured.
View/Add Configuration allows you to control the same logical drive parameters as New Configurationwithout disturbing the existing configuration information. In addition, you can enable the Configuration on Disk feature.
Select Configure—>View/Add Configuration from the Management Menu.
Hot key information appears at the bottom of the screen.
Press the arrow keys to highlight specific physical drives.
Press the spacebar to associate the selected physical drive with the current array.
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.
Add physical drives to the current array as desired.
NOTE: 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.
Press <Enter> twice after you finish creating the current array.
The Select Configurable Array(s) window appears. It displays the array and array number, such as A-00.
Press the spacebar to select the array.
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.
Press <F10> to configure a logical drive.
The logical drive configuration screen appears. Span=Yes displays on this screen if you select two or more arrays to span.
Highlight RAID and press <Enter> to set the RAID level for the logical drive.
The available RAID levels for the current logical drive appear.
Select a RAID level and press <Enter> to confirm.
Highlight Span and press <Enter>.
Highlight a spanning option and press <Enter>.
Move the cursor to Size and press <Enter> to set the logical drive size.
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.
Highlight Span and press <Enter>.
Highlight a spanning option and press <Enter>.
NOTE: The full drive size is used when you span logical drives; you cannot specify a smaller drive
size.
Open the AdvancedMenu to open the menu for logical drive settings.
Set the Stripe Size.
Set the Write Policy.
Set the Read Policy.
Set the Cache Policy.
Press <Esc> to exit the Advanced Menu.
After you define the current logical drive, select Accept and press <Enter>.
If space remains in the arrays, the next logical drive to be configured appears.
Repeat step 2 to step 21 to create an array and configure another logical drive.
If all array space is used, a list of the existing logical drives appears.
Press any key to continue, then respond to the Save prompt.
Initialize the logical drives you have just configured.
Drive roaming occurs when the hard drives are changed to different channels on the same controller or to different target IDs. When the drives are placed on different channels, the controller detects the RAID configuration from the configuration data on the drives. See Drive Roaming in the RAID Controller Features section for more information.
Initializing Logical Drives
Initialize each new logical drive you configure. You can initialize the logical drives individually or in batches (up to 40 simultaneously).
Batch Initialization
Select Initialize from the Management Menu.
A list of the current logical drives appears.
Press the spacebar to select the desired logical drive for initialization.
Press <F2> to select/deselect all logical drives.
After you finish selecting logical drives, press <F10> and select Yes from the confirmation
prompt.
The progress of the initialization for each drive is shown in bar graph format.
When initialization is complete, press any key to continue or press <Esc> to display the
Management Menu.
Individual Initialization
Select the Objects—>Logical Drive from the Management Menu.
Select the logical drive to be initialized.
Select Initialize from the action menu.
Initialization progress appears as a bar graph on the screen.
When initialization completes, press any key to display the previous menu.
Deleting Logical 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.
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:
Select Objects—>Logical Drive from the Management Menu.
The logical drives display.
Use the arrow key to highlight the logical drive you want to delete.
Press <F5> to delete the logical drive.
This deletes the logical drive and makes the space it occupied available for you to make another logical drive.
Clearing Physical Drives
You can clear the data from SCSI drives using the configuration utilities. To clear a drive, perform the following steps:
Select Management Menu—> Objects—>Physical Drives in the BIOS Configuration
Utility.
A device selection window displays the devices connected to the current controller.
Press the arrow keys to select the physical drive to be cleared and press <Enter>.
Select Clear.
When clearing completes, press any key to display the previous menu.
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.
Displaying Media Errors
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:
Select Objects—> Physical Drives from the Management Menu.
Select a device.
Press <F2>.
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.
Rebuilding Failed Hard Drives
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.
Rebuild Types
Table 5-2 describes automatic and manual rebuilds.
Table 5-2. Rebuild Types
Type
Description
Automatic Rebuild
If you have configured hot spares, the RAID controller automatically tries to use them to rebuild failed disks. Select Objects—>Physical Drive to display the list of physical drives while a rebuild is in progress. The hot spare drive changes to REBLD A[array number]-[drive number], indicating the hard drive is being replaced by the hot spare. For example, REBLD A01-02 indicates that the data is being rebuilt on hard drive 2 in array 1.
Manual Rebuild
Manual rebuild is necessary if no hot spares with enough capacity to rebuild the failed drives are available.You must insert a drive with enough storage into the subsystem before rebuilding the failed drive. Use the following procedures to rebuild a failed drive manually in individual or batch mode.
Manual Rebuild – Rebuilding an Individual Drive
Select Objects—>Physical Drive from the Management Menu.
A device selection window displays the devices connected to the current controller.
Designate an available drive as a hot spare before the rebuild starts.
Press the arrow keys to select the failed physical drive you want to rebuild, then press
<Enter>.
Select Rebuild from the action menu and respond to the confirmation prompt.
Rebuilding can take some time, depending on the drive capacity.
When the rebuild is complete, press any key to display the previous menu.
Manual Rebuild – Batch Mode
Select Rebuild from the Management Menu.
A device selection window displays the devices connected to the current controller. The failed drives display as FAIL.
Press the arrow keys to highlight any failed drives to be rebuilt.
Press the spacebar to select the desired physical drive for rebuild.
After you select the physical drives, press <F10> and select Yes at the prompt.
The selected drives change to REBLD. Rebuilding can take some time, depending on the number of drives selected and the drive capacities.
When the rebuild is complete, press any key to continue.
Press <Esc> to display the Management Menu.
Using a Pre-loaded SCSI Drive "As-is"
NOTE: To use a pre-loaded system drive in the manner described here, you must make it the first logical
drive defined (for example: LD1) on the controller it is connected to. This will make the drive ID 0 LUN 0. If
the drive is not a boot device, the logical drive number is not critical.
If you have a SCSI hard drive that is already loaded with software and the drive is a boot disk containing an operating system, add the PERC device driver to this system drive before you switch to the RAID controller and attempt to boot from it. Perform the following steps:
Connect the SCSI drive to the channel on the RAID controller, with proper termination and
target ID settings.
Boot the computer.
Start the configuration utility by pressing <Ctrl><M>.
Select Configure—>Easy Configuration.
Press the cursor keys to select the pre-loaded drive.
Press the spacebar.
The pre-loaded drive should now become an array element.
Press <Enter>.
You have now declared the pre-loaded drive as a one-disk array.
Set the Read Policy and Cache Policy on the AdvancedMenu.
Exit the Advanced Menu.
Highlight Accept and press <Enter>.
Do not initialize.
Press <Esc> and select Yes at the Save prompt.
Exit the configuration utility and reboot.
Set the host system to boot from SCSI, if such a setting is available.
FlexRAID Virtual Sizing
The FlexRAID Virtual Sizing option can no longer be enabled on PERC 4/SC or PERC 4/DC. This option allowed Windows® NT and Novell® NetWare® 5.1 to use the new space of a RAID array immediately after you added capacity online or performed a reconstruction.
NOTE: FlexRAID virtual sizing is not supported on PERC 4e/DC.
FlexRAID Virtual Sizing is in the BIOS Configuration Utility. If you have this option enabled on older cards, you need to disable it, then upgrade the firmware. Perform the following steps to do this:
Download the latest firmware and driver to a diskette or directly to your system.
The download is an executable file that generates the firmware files on bootable diskette.
Restart the system and boot from the diskette.
Run pflash to flash the firmware.
Checking Data Consistency
Select this option 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. 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 periodic data consistency checks on a redundant array. 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.
Perform the following steps to run Check Consistency:
Select Check Consistency from the Management Menu.
Press the arrow keys to highlight the desired logical drives.
Press the spacebar to select or deselect a drive for consistency checking.
Press <F2> to select or deselect all the logical drives.
Press <F10> to begin the consistency check.
A progress graph for each selected logical drive displays.
When the check is finished, press any key to clear the progress display.
Press <Esc> to display the Management Menu.
(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.
Reconstructing Logical Drives
A reconstruction occurs when you change the RAID level of an array or add a physical drive to an existing array. Perform the following steps to reconstruct a drive:
Move the arrow key to highlight Reconstruct on the Management Menu.
Press <Enter>.
The 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.
Press <Enter>.
The next reconstruction window displays. The options on this window are <spacebar> to select a drive, <Enter> to open the reconstruct menu, and <F3> to display logical drive information.
Press <Enter> to open the reconstruct menu.
The menu items are RAID level, stripe size, and reconstruct.
To change the RAID level, select RAID with the arrow key, and press <Enter>.
Select Reconstruct and press <Enter> to reconstruct the logical drive.
NOTE: After you start the reconstruct process, you must wait until it is complete. You cannot reboot,
cancel, or exit until the reconstruction is complete.
